Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  He pushed Gabriel onto the seat of one of the weight machines and strode off purposefully in the direction of the water cooler.

  Gabriel touched his forehead. It was creamy with sweat, whether from his run or from the pain was difficult to say. But inside his skull a little man had taken up residence. A little man with an enormous pickaxe, swinging away, digging up soft clods of brain tissue.

  ‘Here you go.’ The trainer thrust out a burly fist holding a plastic cup filled with water.

  ‘Thanks.’ Gabriel noticed that a few of the other gym members were watching him out of the corners of their eyes. Some looked sympathetic. A few of the men seemed scornful.

  Gabriel took a sip from the plastic cup. But even the simple act of swallowing appeared to kick the little man with the pickaxe into overdrive.

  ‘I think I should go home,’ he said to the trainer, who was still eyeing him with trepidation.

  ‘Yeah, man.’ The trainer looked relieved. ‘Have a rest, OK?’

  In the men’s changing room, Gabriel removed his gym bag from his locker. But instead of heading outside, he sat down on one of the wooden benches. Leaning his head against the wall, he closed his eyes. Time for a recap. He thought back, trying to slow down the experience in his memory: to recall what had happened one still frame at a time.

  Running. The treadmill moving smoothly. The blonde working the rowing machine. Feeling nauseous, not much at first, but with increasing intensity. The sounds in the room receding. Then the extraordinary sensation of a window opening inside his brain. An aperture giving access to a massive cascade of images flooding through his mind with the ferocity of an avalanche. His protection reflex kicking in. His brain screaming at him to clamp down. The tidal wave stopping but his head gripped by pain. Pain such as he had never experienced before in his entire life, blowing out his consciousness. His brain crashing like a computer on overload. Blackout.

  Mind attack. The experience which had left Robert Whittington brain-damaged before he drowned, and had killed his old man. And now it was his turn.

  She had entered his mind twice before but those had been scans: explorations, fact-finding missions. ‘Getting to know you’ exercises.

  This had been no scan. This had been an assault.

  For a few seconds he continued to sit quietly, trying to come to terms with the implications. But it was difficult to concentrate. The little man inside his head was still wielding the pickaxe with gusto. The little guy must be in pretty good shape: he hadn’t slowed down since he started on his mission of destruction. Gabriel knew he should make an effort to get to his apartment, but it was peaceful here and he felt so damn tired. The idea of having to make the journey home seemed overwhelmingly daunting.

  On your feet, Blackstone. You can’t hide out in the men’s changing room for the rest of your life.

  Outside the sun was shining. The storm of the previous night had disappeared and there were no clouds in the sky. But it was very cold. Or maybe it was just that he was still suffering from shock.

  He had used his bicycle to get to the gym. For a moment he contemplated leaving his bike where it was and taking a taxi home. The way he felt now, a stretcher would not be unwelcome. But it was difficult to find a cab round here and if he took one, he’d only have to come back for the bike later. Better to bite the bullet. It wasn’t that far to his apartment.

  He pedalled slowly, keeping well to the left side of the road, crossing junctions with care. Taking no chances. Only a few minutes more and he’d be home. Sanctuary.

  And then it happened again. And this time it almost killed him.

  One moment he was pedalling slowly and deliberately, keeping his eye on a clapped-out MG whose driver was signalling that he wanted to change lanes. The next moment his entire body was gripped with pain and nausea. The force of it was so great, he almost crashed his bicycle there and then. He swerved violently and a car hooted angrily behind him. For a few agonising moments, it was as though he had entered a fun house in a carnival. Everything ultra-bright. Nothing making sense. The traffic around him frightening chaos. And then someone was emptying a giant container of violently animated images into his brain, the flood roaring through the window in his mind at warp speed, too fast to process: a sick, psychedelic blur.

  Clamp down! Clamp down! The nauseating flood of images was arrested mid-stream but at the same time a bolt of pain ripped through his head with gut-wrenching violence. Vaguely he was aware of the bicycle wobbling underneath him like a thing possessed—but it seemed to be happening to someone else, not himself. Someone else…

  The hissing of giant brakes and the urgent hoot of a bus horn shocked him out of his stupor. He had strayed into the bus lane—right into the path of an oncoming double-decker.

  Gabriel screamed. He swerved his bicycle violently to one side and ploughed onto the pavement and into a crowd of pedestrians. As the bike went down, he could hear shouts of alarm and anger.

  He lay where he fell. He could hear voices but no one came over to find out if he was hurt. Someone said something in a low, disgusted voice and he thought he caught the word ‘drunk’.

  He did not know how long he remained on his back staring stupidly at the sky. When he finally pulled himself upright, he was a lone island in a river of pedestrians. People were giving him a wide berth, keeping their faces averted as they passed him by.

  The bicycle’s wheel was bent. He would not be able to ride it home. He started to push it, an automatic act. He wasn’t able to concentrate. Everything around him seemed fragile and impermanent. His thoughts incoherent.

  Mind attack.

  She had finished playing around. He was in her kill zone.

  • • •

  He spent most of the rest of the day in bed. After arriving home he swallowed a handful of Nurofen and two sleeping tablets. Time enough later to come to terms with what had happened to him and to devise a plan of action. Action was the last thing on his mind right now. All he wanted was relief from the ocean of pain inside his skull.

  But when he woke up a full five hours later, his head was still throbbing. Not nearly as badly as earlier in the day, but the pain was there, lurking slyly among the ganglia. It was only four o’clock in the afternoon, but already the sky was a cold dirty yellow and the sun was disappearing. His bedroom was grey with shadows. He pulled the blanket closer round his shoulders and tried to focus.

  He needed to decide what to do. Even though his clamp-down reflex was highly developed, he would not be able to continue to defend himself against the kind of battering his mind had received today. The second time, on the bicycle, he had felt his brain sag.

  Why now? The night of the birthday party he had been at her mercy but she had not harmed him; she had only scanned. So what had changed? What made her decide to go on the rampage?

  The Promethean Key. His retrieval of The Key had infuriated her into launching a full-out assault. There was no other explanation. The architectural sketches definitely came from the house of a million doors, but what was the house of a million doors?

  He got up from the bed and shuffled over to his computer, clutching the blanket to him as though he were a homeless person. He started to scroll down the pages, his eyes skimming through the unintelligible symbols and cryptic references. Somewhere in these pages there must be something that would make sense…

  He stilled his hand.

  Memory palace. Power station = portal.

  He stared at the blinking cursor, which was resting on the word ‘memory’.

  Maybe the house of a million doors wasn’t a house. Maybe it was a palace.

  But a memory palace? What was a memory palace?

  No. He was asking the wrong question. The question he should be asking wasn’t what, but who. Who would be able to design such a palace of the memory? Who would be able to build this place where a boy could be lured to his death?

  The answer lay in the word ‘memory’. He knew of only one person who had studied the concep
t of memory with the rigour of a scholar and the commitment of a mystic.

  Minnaloushe.

  Minnaloushe was the architect of the memory palace. The place in which Robert Whittington had followed a woman who had led him to his death.

  He had finally identified her.

  Oh, Minnaloushe. Why?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Minnaloushe had murdered Robert Whittington. Had held his head under the water until the boy had drowned.

  Gabriel breathed shallowly. He felt sick.

  OK. This was not the time to get emotional. Think.

  One question has been answered. Who?

  That left why. Why did Minnaloushe kill Robert Whittington?

  The answer to that question was tied up with the memory palace. But he still did not know what that was. And, until he did, he would be unable to solve the puzzle.

  The answer could be just a click away. As he logged on to his favourite search engine, he could feel his heart pounding inside his chest.

  Memory palace

  The first link he clicked on opened onto the personal webpage of one Adrian Stallworthy. There was no picture of Mr Stallworthy and his personal details were sketchy, but there was enough information on the page to convince Gabriel that this was a man he would like to meet.

  Adrian Stallworthy. Professor in Medieval Codes, University of Cambridge. Author of the definitive work: Memory palaces, Theatres and the Art of Memory (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

  There followed a long list of journal publications, all of them sounding dauntingly esoteric.

  Gabriel glanced at his watch. It was still early enough in the afternoon for a hard-working academic to be in his office. The number was on the webpage and sure enough, the phone rang only once before it was answered.

  ‘Adrian Stallworthy.’ His voice was pleasant.

  ‘Professor Stallworthy, my name is Gabriel Blackstone. I have a disc which I believe holds the plans for a memory palace. I was hoping you might be able to interpret the plans for me.’

  ‘A memory palace? From which period?’

  ‘Uh…’

  ‘Classical Greece? Middle Ages? Renaissance?’

  ‘No. I think it’s a modern-day palace.’

  A long pause. When he spoke again, the interest in Stallworthy’s voice was unmistakable. ‘If it is, Mr Blackstone, it would be unique. Why don’t you send it to me via an attachment and I’ll take a look.’

  ‘I would rather not send it via email, Professor.’ Until he knew what he was dealing with he was not about to let The Key loose on the Internet. He didn’t want any stray copies floating around cyberspace. ‘Maybe we could meet in person?’

  ‘Well.’ Stallworthy paused. ‘I could see you in my office, I suppose. How about seven o’clock this evening?’

  ‘Thank you, Professor. I appreciate it. If you could give me your address?’

  Gabriel replaced the receiver with a heavy hand. Cambridge. Fifty-four miles through rush-hour traffic on the M11. Not an appealing prospect. Especially as he still felt like death warmed over.

  Fear suddenly knotted his stomach. What if Minnaloushe launched another mind attack? What if what happened to him this morning on his bicycle happened again while he was behind the wheel of his car? Twisted metal, sirens, flashing lights, ambulances.

  Death.

  For the first time he thought about it properly. He could die. She could kill him.

  But if he didn’t get answers, he would never be safe. She had him in her crosshairs. Without knowing what he was up against, he would have nowhere to run. Know thine enemy.

  He could ask Isidore to drive him. It would minimise the risk to himself and to others on the road. And the thought of company was attractive. But he did not want to put Isidore in danger. Letting his friend come with him to Monk House last night had been a stupid thing to do. He didn’t want Isidore to surface on Minnaloushe’s radar for even a nanosecond. From here on he was going to leave Isidore out of this mess. And for the first time since she had left, he was glad Frankie was out of the country as well.

  Now that he had made up his mind to go, he wanted to get on the road as soon as possible. He would drive very slowly and at the first hint of a scan he’d pull off.

  In the bathroom he washed his face and combed his hair. His eyes were bloodshot. His head hurt. A tiny tic pulsed under one eyelid. Just a tremor, but he couldn’t seem to calm it down. He placed his fingers on the spot beneath his eye where the nerve was twitching, willing it to stop. But when he removed his fingers, there it was again, the tiniest of movements.

  He shrugged into his coat, collected his car keys. But as he pulled the front door shut behind him, he hesitated. He was aware of menace lurking, something lethal hovering in the air. Instead of taking the lift—the idea of getting into that confined space was suddenly unthinkable—he chose the stairs.

  He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being watched. The sense of some sly, malevolent presence following him, waiting somewhere in the shadows, was strong and deeply unpleasant. Perhaps it had been waiting for him to leave the safety of his apartment all along.

  The hair on his neck was standing up. He continued to walk down the stairs doggedly, looking straight in front of him. The pain in his head was a low aching throb. His heart beat wildly.

  At a bend in the stairs he forced himself to look up. Was there a movement up there? The blur of a white face? Had someone leaned over the railing only to jerk back when he looked up? For a long moment he waited. Nothing stirred. But instead of relief, dread slipped round his throat like a noose. Any moment now, he would hear the whisper of a footfall. A hand would come to rest on his shoulder…

  And suddenly he was running, running—sprinting down the stairs two at a time. His heart was beating so hard he thought he might pass out. As he reached the lobby he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the hallway mirror and what he saw shocked him: the staring face of a man hollowed out by fear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The drive to Cambridge took ninety minutes and was completely uneventful. His sense of foreboding, however, did not let up. When Gabriel finally parked his car in one of the city centre car parks his neck was stiff and his back cramped from the continued apprehension.

  The professor had given him the address of the college but no directions. After getting lost twice, he was finally given directions by a pretty student. He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes past the hour. He was late for his appointment.

  As he followed the girl’s instructions, he wondered about the man he was about to meet. Medieval codes. Not exactly a run-of-the-mill specialty even in the rarefied corridors of academia. The man was probably more than a little eccentric.

  But Adrian Stallworthy turned out to be nothing like Gabriel had imagined. Instead of the caricature of the academic professor—stooped, balding, short-sighted—Adrian Stallworthy was quite the hunk. He had blue eyes, broad shoulders and slender hips. A photograph of the professor standing in front of a rowing boat, an oar clutched in one hand, explained the impressive physique.

  Stallworthy’s grip was firm and his smile genuinely friendly. ‘Mr Blackstone. Have a seat.’ He waved at a battered armchair.

  Gabriel sat down. The springs of the seat were sagging, and he sank almost to the ground. But once you got the hang of it, the chair was surprisingly comfortable.

  On the professor’s desk was a scuffed cardboard notice saying, ‘Please switch off your mobile!’ Stallworthy saw him looking at it and said apologetically, ‘Mobiles are my pet hate.’

  ‘Understandable.’ Gabriel reached into his jacket pocket and extracted his mobile. Pressing his thumb on the off button, he waited for the lighted display to darken. ‘There.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Stallworthy inclined his head.

  Gabriel leaned forward and pushed the disc containing The Promethean Key across the desk. ‘If you could explain to me what’s on here, Professor, I would be in your debt.’

  Stall
worthy picked up the CD and slid it into his disc drive. ‘This may take a while.’

  ‘No rush.’

  Gabriel looked around him. Stallworthy might not be your quintessential dried-up academic but his digs were decidedly conventional. Shabby Oriental carpet with bald spots. Hideous sludge-brown curtains. Books everywhere. A replica of this office could be found at any university anywhere in the world. The room was also distinctly chilly, the fire in the soot-stained fireplace creating more smoke than heat.

  Stallworthy made a slight sound, whether of surprise or incredulity, Gabriel couldn’t tell. But whatever the professor was looking at, it certainly held his attention.

  After about twenty minutes, he leaned back in his chair and looked at Gabriel.

  ‘Mr Blackstone—I have to confess, I haven’t been this excited in years.’

  ‘So you do know what it is.’

  ‘Something truly unique. Very special indeed.’ Stallworthy pressed his finger on the button of the disc drive and removed the CD, placing it delicately on the desk in front of him as though afraid it might break.

  ‘Have you ever heard of something called the Art of Memory?’ There was reverence in Stallworthy’s tone. Gabriel could hear him virtually capitalise the letters A and M.

  ‘I can’t say that I have.’

  ‘It’s a technique which originated with the ancient Greeks. Later, in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it became a tool in the hands of alchemists and Gnostics.’

  Gabriel felt a sense of inevitability descend on him. ‘A tool. A magic tool, of course. ‘

  ‘Indeed. By practising the Art of Memory, practitioners were able to amplify their memory skills to unimaginable levels.’

  Gabriel frowned. ‘I’m not sure I understand. You mean, their memories were improved?’

  ‘“Improved” is far too mild a term to describe what happened to these men. Their memories were rocket-boosted.’ Stallworthy steepled his fingers. ‘Let me try to explain it this way. We are all born with natural memory. But our memory spans are limited. So we use little memory tricks to aid us. You know how some people make use of mnemonics to help them remember names? Well, the Art of Memory is a very highly developed form of mnemonics. When someone practises the Art, he builds artificial memory in his mind, which is capable of handling infinitely bigger chunks of knowledge than he’d normally be able to absorb. You could almost say his mind becomes computerised, adapting itself to processing vast quantities of information.’