Equinox

Chapter 42

Oxford: 30 March, 10.43 p.m.

Laura and Philip were in total darkness. There were no crystals in the low ceiling of this chamber, and when the stone had crashed down it had blocked out the meagre light that had penetrated from the corridor. Philip swung his rucksack off his shoulder and found the main zipper. Slipping his hand inside, he felt around for the torches. He flicked them on in the bag and pulled them out, handing one to Laura. They both sat back against the wall and trained the spots of light around the room. Then Philip stood up and went to inspect the place where until a few seconds earlier the doorway had been. He ran his torch's beam over the smooth rock surface. In this light he could see no trace of a join. The stone block must have fitted almost perfectly.

Laura walked over to the far wall and ran her torch beam over the surface, then across the floor and

ceiling. The room was no more than twelve feet square and the ceiling was very low. She wondered suddenly if they might run out of air. And then, with a jolt, she spotted an anomaly in the otherwise smooth rock. It was an inscription, the now familiar phrase: ALUMNUS AMAS SEMPER UNICUM TUA DEUS.

'Philip, look.' She bent down to examine the markings more closely, feeling the letters with the tips of her fingers. The words were made of metal, raised a millimetre or two above the surface of the rock. As she touched them they sank into the wall, springing back when she removed her fingers.

'Curiouser and curiouser,' Laura said.

Philip pushed a few of the letters and watched them rise up again. 'Do you think it's some sort of lock, a combination lock?' he mused. 'If we get the right sequence maybe we can find a way out.'

'I bloody well hope so,' Laura replied grimly. 'But how on earth can we figure out the combination? We can't guess — there are literally billions of possibilities.'

'Well, no, obviously we can't just take a guess. The words must have some hidden meaning. "Adept, Love Always Thy God" must have something to do with it.'

Laura pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. When she opened them again her eyes were bloodshot and Philip realised how hard she had been pushing herself.

'OK, we have to figure something out. How long before we suffocate?' Laura asked.

'I thought the same thing the moment the stone came down,' Philip replied. 'Did you feel the air rush out? I reckon we could last hours in here if that hadn't happened. But, to be honest, I feel the air is getting pretty thin already'

'I do too.'

'We have to try to slow our breathing and stay calm. The last thing you want is to increase your heart rate.' He looked round at Laura; he thought she looked pretty frayed.

'I am calm,' snapped Laura. 'OK, let's concentrate on this darn inscription.'

Methodically, she tried a series of different combinations. Nothing worked. Suddenly she felt a tightening in her chest, and before she knew what she was doing she was punching viciously at the metal. 'Damn you!'

Philip was next to her in a second and pulled her hands away from the letters before she could injure herself. Laura collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He held her to him and kissed her gently on the cheek. He could feel her shaking and knew that he had to let her get it out of her system. After a few moments, he guided her to the wall close to the sealed doorway and lowered her to the floor before sitting down next to her.

'We're not going to get out of this one, are we?' she sobbed.

'Of course we are, you daft-'

'Philip … the air is going. It's going, I can feel

it.'

He couldn't deny it. In just the past minute or two, the air seemed to have grown much thinner and he was finding it harder to draw breath. He pulled her closer.

They were quiet for a moment. Laura stopped sobbing but kept her head close to Philip's chest. 'I really am sorry, you know,' she added quietly.

'Sorry for what?' he replied, but he knew exactly what she was referring to.

'You know what I'm talking about, Philip. I don't need to spell it out, not to you.'

He said nothing.

Laura pulled her head away from his shoulder. 'I … I just thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I didn't think we had a future. I was wrong. I should have stayed. I should have married you.'

Philip suddenly felt lost. For days the two of them had been preoccupied with solving the mystery of the killings and then they had been put through the wringer here in this stinking hole under the Bodleian Library. But it took no time at all for the old emotions to come flooding back. For almost twenty years he had tried to bottle them up, and for the most part, he told himself, he had succeeded. But every time Laura had come back to England or he had gone to New York the same old wounds had reopened. He hated it — but then, he simply could not go through life without seeing Laura and Jo whenever possible. For a moment, he was lost for words. What could he say?

He studied Laura's face. In the sparse torchlight he could see the streaks of her tears. They had made her mascara run. Then, suddenly, her mouth was on his and he could feel her melt into him, feel her hair brushing his cheek, feel her warmth, her familiarity. He had missed that so much. Then, all too quickly, she pulled away and they looked into each other's eyes.

'What. .?' he asked.

'I just wanted to steal your air.'

Philip laughed. 'You're welcome, Laura.'

She put a finger to his lips and smiled. Then she leaned forward to kiss him again.

A second later she yelped, her lips still fixed to Philip's. 'That's it.'

Without saying another word, Laura walked over to the far wall, crouched down and began to stab at the letters. She hit five of them, her hand moving quickly from left to right until she reached the 'M' in 'UNICUM'. She drew her hand back and punched at the letter with a grandiose gesture. Philip couldn't suppress a small laugh.

For long, agonising moments they waited. Then there was the faintest squeak followed by another creaking sound in the wall perpendicular to the original opening. A few nervous heartbeats later, the first crack began to appear in the wall and gradually two huge slabs of rock started to slide upwards into recesses in the ceiling. Philip grabbed the rucksack and they scrambled through the new doorway as quickly as they could.