Equinox

Chapter 32

Oxford: 29 March, 9.05 p.m.

Back at the house Philip stoked up the Aga and put the kettle on while Laura went upstairs to find a woollen cardigan. A few minutes later they were in the sitting room with a fresh fire catching hold in the grate.

'The thing is,' Philip said, sipping at a mug of hot tea, 'Lightman's disappearance almost certainly has nothing to do with the murders. It's just a coincidence.'

Laura looked at him blankly. 'I can't see how they could be connected, but it's just so. . well. . weird.'

Philip shrugged. 'Did you get any feeling that Lightman was ill, or disturbed? Could he have flipped out?'

Laura shook her head.

'Did he suffer from depression?'

'I don't know. I've only seen him a few times in

recent years. He seemed totally together to me. Why? You think he just left his car and walked off?'

'It happens.'

'Sure. But Lightman?'

'Which means he was abducted?'

Laura looked up from her tea. 'God knows, Philip. But who. .?'

'I guess we'll know soon enough. The police won't want to let this one go easily. Lightman's a star in Oxford, and one of the wealthiest men in Britain.' He held up the DVD that they had retrieved from Box 14. 'Shall we?'

There were a few seconds of static before the screen lit up with an image of Charlie Tucker sitting on a chair, staring straight at the camera. They could see bookshelves behind him and an ashtray on the floor beside his chair. He was taking a drag on a cigarette. It looked as though he was filming himself: the angle was not quite right and the lighting was poor.

'Hi, Laura babe. Well, at least I hope it's you watching this.' He gave the camera a brief, nervous smile. 'By the time you get this,' he went on, 'I'll either be dead or abroad somewhere.'

Laura felt a knot in the pit of her stomach.

'The fact is,' Charlie continued, 'my life's in danger. I don't have long to explain and there's so much to say. I hate putting you in danger, but when you came to see me the other day. . well, I got the feeling you were already in it up to your neck, so. .'

'OK, where to start? Right, well. . You've obviously been to Box 14 at Paddington and you have the Newton text. I expect you've been wondering how on earth I could get hold of such a thing. Well, the truth is that for a while I was involved with the group I mentioned — you know, the occultists. .

'I speak in the past tense because I hope I've got out. You see, I was drawn in by default. They had some incriminating evidence concerning my political activities back in the 1980s and, well … the government has a long memory, especially when it comes to the sort of things I was doing.' Charlie produced a conspiratorial grin. 'Anyway, I scarpered when I realised what the group was really up to. I don't want to be part of that.' The cigarette had burned down to the filter, and he paused to take another from a packet in his pocket. Lighting it from the stub, he took a deep drag and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

'Look.' Charlie shifted in his seat. 'This is probably making no sense. Let me start from the beginning.' He coughed.

'Let's go back sixteen hundred years to the Library of Alexandria. A great scholar, who was also the Chief Librarian, was a woman named Hypatia. Npw

Hypatia was quite a gal: not only was she one of the most knowledgeable people of the time, but she caused great controversy by rejecting much of the newfangled Christianity that was sweeping across the world. She was viewed as a heretic and was eventually flayed alive by a group of oh-so-pious Christians.' Charlie smirked.

'Hypatia was an adept of the occult. A millennium after her time she would have been called a white witch. In her keeping were some of the most important artefacts known to civilisation. In her library she kept rare manuscripts that dealt with all aspects of the occult, both black and white magic, and she had in her possession the two greatest alchemical treasures known to humankind — the emerald tablet and the ruby sphere.

'The emerald tablet is famous, of course. Over the centuries it's become established as the central pillar of alchemical law. It offers the alchemist a sort of "instruction manual" for their work. Less well known is the ruby sphere. Rumours about this object have circulated in the Hermetic world since Hypatia's time, but few have seen it and fewer still have any idea what power it contains.

'The night the Library of Alexandria was destroyed, on 13 March AD 415, Hypatia made sure that the emerald tablet was taken from the city and transported to Europe, where it was protected by a line of alchemists stretching down the centuries. Meanwhile, she made safe the ruby sphere in a secret hiding place within the foundations of the library. A year later, her father Ecumenius retrieved the precious thing and brought it to England. There he was met by the leaders of a small group of adepts who called themselves the Guardians, a group whose secrets derived from Ancient Egypt and the first alchemists, and in whose arts Hypatia and Ecumenius had been trained.

The Guardians hid the ruby sphere in a secret vault to which the only access was via an underground labyrinth. They built this close to their meeting place and ensured that the only ones who could pass through the labyrinth were those who possessed the secret knowledge needed to succeed in completing a series of tests. Almost a thousand years later, the city of Oxford grew up on this site.

'The ruby sphere remained in its hiding place until the seventeenth century when Christopher Wren was commissioned to build the Sheldonian Theatre. He discovered the labyrinth, but did nothing about it. However, a couple of decades later Isaac Newton, perhaps the greatest alchemist of his or indeed any age, stumbled across the vital clues about how to find the sphere from a document that had passed through the hands of another alchemist a couple of centuries before him, a man named George Ripley.'

Charlie leaned back in the chair and blew smoke towards the camera.

'This was almost a disaster. The sphere possesses genuinely awesome power and Newton was a genius, obsessed with elucidating the secrets of the universe at whatever cost. With the sphere, he had the chance to fulfil his dream.'

Charlie paused for a moment and stubbed out his cigarette. 'I suppose you're wondering what all the fuss is about? What's so special about this ruby sphere? Why is it so important that people would give their lives to protect it? Murder to possess it? Well, the sphere is the key to finding the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life, the ultimate dream of the alchemist. No one really knows who made the sphere. It is at least as old as the early Egyptian civilisation and some have speculated that originally it's not from this world. By reading an incantation which is inscribed as one continuous coil around the surface of the sphere, the adept can call upon the Devil to turn the lifeless contents of the crucible into the mythical and most cherished Stone.

'Now, I wouldn't blame you, Laura, if you think this is all a load of crap. But whether or not you believe the ruby sphere can be used to conjure up the Devil, there are those who really do believe, and today, in Oxford, a group of powerful alchemists are trying to prove it. They don't have the sphere, but they do possess some of the secrets they need.

'And I imagine you're trying to figure out what the link is between Isaac Newton in the seventeenth century and this group in the twenty-first. Perhaps you're wondering why I've given you a copy of Newton's secret encoded work, and you must also be trying to understand what I have to do with all this, and why my life is in danger.

'Newton, you see, was the forebear of the present-day group. He called his cabal the Order of the Black Sphinx. This was the name originally used by the early Egyptian alchemists who first used the sphere. He formed what has been called an Unholy Trinity with his lover, the medic Nicolas Fatio du Duillier, and their mutual acquaintance, James Boyle, the younger brother of the great Robert Boyle. The link between Newton and his friends and the present Order of the Black Sphinx is the conjunction of the planets. Newton found a way to obtain the ruby sphere about eighteen months before a five-body conjunction in 1690. The next time the conjunction occurred Professor Milliner had acquired some of the secret lore of the Order and tried his hand. Today, the Order are trying to repeat Newton's experiment.

'And what is this experiment? I'm assuming you have worked that out. The ruby sphere tells the adept to gather five organs, each to be taken from a young woman at precisely documented times. In place of each organ a metal coin is left, an Ancient Egyptian Arkhanon depicting five women — the five victims. These organs are preserved and used at a preordained hour. Placed on the points of the pentagram, they are central to the enactment of a ceremony which, if successful, will call upon the Devil to appear and to impart the secret of how to create the Philosopher's Stone.

'Newton and his friends succeeded in gathering the organs after murdering five young women in Oxford. The organs — a heart, a brain, a pair of kidneys, a gall bladder and a liver — were preserved according to the techniques passed down by the original members of the Order, Egyptian alchemists skilled in the art of mummification and preservation. This was du Duillier's speciality. He had made a detailed study of the processes and had done his best to duplicate the ancient techniques. The ritual was to take place in a chamber beneath the Bodleian Library — a part of the labyrinth of the Guardians. Newton and his friends reached this chamber through a hidden entrance in the wine cellars of Hertford College, close to the Bodleian. It was vital to complete the tests created by the Guardians of the fifth century, but they could do this relatively easily because Newton had the information handed down to him in the manuscript written by George Ripley. It was only thanks to the intervention of the Guardians in the nick of time that Newton was thwarted.

'From what I've learned of them, the existence of the Guardians is even more secret than that of the Order of the Black Sphinx, and they have been more successful — up until now. In Newton's time, the Guardians were led by Robert Boyle. . Yes, ironic, isn't it, that James was a key figure in Newton's group. Robert Boyle was helped by Newton's great rival Robert Hooke and a man named John Wickins, who had been Newton's closest associate, his roommate, a man who had been planted in Cambridge as a young student, specifically to keep an eye on Newton.'

Charlie peered intently at the camera. 'The present-day Order of the Black Sphinx is behind the murders of the young women in Oxford. Their members include a trained killer, a man known only as the Acolyte. They are gathering organs and preserving them, and this time they have twenty-first-century technology at their disposal. Their intention is the same as Newton's and Milliner's — to perform an occult ritual when Mars, Venus and Jupiter are in conjunction with the sun and the moon. This will occur on 31 March, the day after tomorrow, at 1.34 a.m.

'And what did I have to do with all this?' Charlie shifted in his seat before answering his own question. 'Remember my visit to New York, Laura? I was there representing the Order. You see, the Order of the twenty-first century have never had the ruby sphere. Other than the Guardians, Isaac Newton and his companions were the only men to have seen or touched the precious thing since Hypatia's day. And when their cabal was shattered in 1690 the sphere was reclaimed and hidden by Robert Boyle. Furthermore, all Newton's papers on the subject were destroyed. All, that is, except for one, a short encoded document entitled Principia Chemicum , a copy of which you now have in your possession.

'This is the document that I obtained for the Order in New York. They knew they could almost certainly never get hold of the sphere in time for the conjunction, and without it their efforts would be futile. However, the leader of the Order, a man I have never met and whose identity has remained a secret, found out about Newton's manuscript and the information it contained — among other things, a linear version of the inscription.'

It was time for another cigarette. 'Let me explain. I said there was an inscription on the sphere. It consists of a single line of Egyptian hieroglyphs etched in a spiral around the sphere from one pole to the other. The makers of the sphere were keen to prevent the knowledge contained within the inscription reaching anyone but the initiated. So they used a cunning form of encryption called steganography — in other words, a physical code. What I mean is that the message, the incantation that must be used in the ritual, had to be read on the sphere by looking at the symbols vertically from top to bottom, not around the spiral. It's an ancient technique called a scytale.

'This is fine if you have the sphere, but only Newton and the Guardians have ever possessed it. The document I found in New York, Newton's manuscript, contains a copy of the inscription translated into Latin, but it was transcribed in linear form, making it more or less useless. I studied mathematics, remember? And I specialised in encryption. The leader of the current Order knew this. I was offered a job that I could not refuse. I had no idea what they were trying to do — well, at least not until I got the manuscript.

'It took me almost a year to decipher the linear inscription. The missing clue was the size of the sphere. If you know that then you can turn the linear inscription into a spiral again and read down the lines to retrieve the message. Newton left no record of the dimensions of the sphere, so you could guess for ever and never get a true interpretation. The only other way to crack the code was by using the most advanced decryption methods and a very expensive computer. I was given the equipment and, well, the rest was up here.' Charlie tapped his head. 'Being a genius has its uses.

'Throughout the time I was trying to crack the code I was under constant pressure from representatives of the Order. But I was also making it my business to find out as much as I could about what they were planning to do with the code. I have never managed to establish who the members are. Nor who their leader is. Everything was done through messengers and by encrypted e-mail. But, having discovered their intentions, I wanted out.

'Just two weeks ago I delivered the decryption. But what the Order have is quite useless. They are not aware of this yet and they are still killing. Two more young women will die in a little over twenty-four hours unless the Order is stopped.'

Charlie took a long contemplative puff of his cigarette. 'Laura, it's up to you now. I hope you can enlist the help of others you trust. There's not much more I can do to help except to tell you what I've learned, so here it is.

'Although Newton did not possess the technology needed to preserve the organs for the ceremony, he did have several advantages over the present-day members of the Order of the Black Sphinx. Most importantly, he had the sphere. Also, when the Order was broken up by the Guardians in 1690 they lost almost all their records — and Boyle and the others made sure that the hidden entrance to the labyrinth through Hertford College was sealed up. The Guardians created a new entry point, the location of which you will have to figure out from other clues I will give you. This leads via a long tunnel to the original labyrinth under the Bodleian.

'This means that Milliner in 1851 was facing three grave problems. He didn't have the sphere but was working from a mysterious copy of the linear inscription, probably a copy that Boyle's brother James had managed to keep from the Guardians back in 1690. He also had no clear idea how to preserve the organs he had started to gather in Oxford and, finally, he did not know how to enter the labyrinth — the Hertford College entry point was no more. And of course he was not privy to the secrets of the Guardians, so he could not have learned of the newer entrance made after Newton's time. To get round this, Milliner did something quite extraordinary. He had known for years about the miles of tunnels under the Bodleian. Even in Victorian times these tunnels were extensive. Through his intimate knowledge of the occult and the traditions of the Order of the Black Sphinx he had a clear idea of the location of the ancient chamber in which the ceremony was to be held. So he financed a little private construction — or, rather, ^construction — work, which involved linking up the nearest tunnels to those leading to the chamber. The work was carried out in the late 1840s, and the poor architect employed by Milliner was found hanged a month after the job was completed. The police believed he had committed suicide.'

Charlie started to cough and could not stop. 'God,' he said after a while, 'I really must give up these bloody things. I have a strong feeling,' he went on, 'that the present-day members of the Order have no idea how to reach the chamber through the labyrinth of the Guardians, but they have the route that Milliner created which bypasses the labyrinth altogether. It would be impossible to get to the chamber from the surface or to escape the tunnels again without a map, and as far as I know there is only one copy of this and it is kept safely hidden by the Order.

'Well,' Charlie said, with a long sigh. 'I've almost reached the end of this strange monologue. I hope you understand a little more of the background. I wish I could be there with you to help you, but. . Well, anyway, all I can offer are some clues. This DVD also contains valuable information that will help you. After this message is over, put the disc in your computer. You'll have to decipher my message, a personal one for you, Laura, which will stop anyone else breaking in. Once you are through, you'll find information that will help you translate Newton's manuscript, and from this you will find the current entrance to the labyrinth. Once there, you're pretty much on your own. I have no idea what the Guardians' defences are, nor how you can pass through the labyrinth by completing the three tests created by the ancients. Unfortunately, although Newton had passed through it successfully himself with the aid of Ripley's manuscript, and then later with du Duillier and Boyle the Younger, he left almost no hints about the labyrinth in his document.

'Farewell, Laura. I hope when you see this I'll still be alive and sunning myself on some exotic beach. Maybe when this is all over we can get together and catch up on old times, just like we did when I came to New York. Bye, Sweet Pea.'

The screen went blank. Philip and Laura were both so absorbed with their thoughts that they didn't hear Jo open the front door and come into the room.

Laura looked up. 'Oh, hi, honey,' she said distractedly.

'Good programme?' Jo asked, eyebrows raised. 'It's a message from Charlie.' Jo looked at her mother with blank incomprehension.

'A recording he made just before he died. It explains an awful lot.' Laura clicked the remote and the DVD began to play again.

'So what are we waiting for?' Jo said when it was over. 'Let's try the computer.'

Philip put the DVD in the drive and the screen lit up to display a short message:

Enter ' 1' and answer.

Philip hit the ' 1' key and a new line of text appeared:

LAURA, YOU LIKED IT THAT EVENING

Philip turned to look at Laura, an eyebrow raised. 'Well?'

'Well, what? What the hell is that supposed to mean?'

'It's the personal clue Charlie mentioned. The answer will be something obvious only to you.' 'Did you and Charlie. .?' Philip said. 'Oh, please.' 'Well, I just. .'

'He must be referring to New York,' Laura said. 'That's the only time I've seen him in the evening for twenty years. We went to Harry's Grill on West 34th Street.' She stopped for a moment and looked blankly at the screen, trying to recall the evening.

'Was there anything special about it?' Philip asked.

'The creme brulee was pretty amazing.'

'Let's try it,' Jo said.

Philip typed in 'creme brulee' and the screen went blank for a moment before a new message appeared.

WARM, BUT SORRY. JUST TWO TRIES LEFT

'Shit,' Philip exclaimed.

'What? I thought that was it,' Laura hissed and turned to her daughter.

Jo shrugged. 'Too easy, obviously. Then, pulling over a chair, she leaned across Philip. 'OK, we've got two more chances and that's it. We'd better take this a little more carefully.'

'But it's impossible,' Laura said. 'It could be anything.'

'Yeah, but it's a personal code, Mom, something you would know right away.'

'That's why I suggested "creme brulee", Jo. .'

'OK,' Philip said. 'Let's think. Charlie's clue is YOU ENJOYED IT THAT EVENING. What else could he mean? You sure he's even referring to the evening in New York?'

'How the hell would I know?' Laura could feel the frustration rising.

'I think you're on the right lines,' Jo said. 'Charlie says as much — warm — which must refer to the evening at the restaurant. But the code could be

"creme" or "brulee" or "cb". . anything.'

None of them spoke for a moment. Jo looked lost in thought. Laura ran her fingers through her hair and gazed at the screen.

'I think you're right,' Philip said, eventually. 'It could be anything, but Charlie gave you a clue after the first attempt. Maybe we need more information.'

'Yes, but that would give us just one last try.'

'Any better ideas?' Philip replied.

'Hang on,' Laura said suddenly. 'If we fail after three goes, can't we just reinsert the DVD and start again?'

'I doubt it. It'll wipe itself, I'm sure,' Jo said. 'Or self-destruct like in Mission Impossible? 'Oh, swell.'

'I think Dad's right, though. Without more information we could guess all night. Let's just try something and hope for the best.'

'Doesn't sound very scientific,' said Philip.

'How about just 'brulee'?' Jo suggested.

Laura shrugged. 'I guess.'

Philip typed in the word. After a moment a new message appeared.

STONE ME, LAURA. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE EASY FOR YOU! IT'S JUST FIVE LETTERS, BABE

'Damn it,' Laura exclaimed and exhaled through her teeth. Then suddenly she clapped her hands together. 'No, no, of course, that's it. .'

'What?'

'I remember now. We were just about to eat the creme brulee when the Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar" came on the restaurant stereo. Charlie made a joke about the coincidence — creme brulee — brown sugar?' She leaned over Philip's shoulder and typed in five letters.

'Hang on, Laura,' Philip said, twisting round to face her. 'What're you going to put in?'

'Five letters, of course — Charlie says so — It has to be STONE, doesn't it? And besides, what is this all about anyway? What is the Order of the Black Sphinx after? What was Newton trying to get?' Before either of the others could say anything, Laura tapped in the five letters and hit 'enter'. This time the screen turned black. Then suddenly the word CONGRATULATIONS appeared.

Laura let out a deep sigh. She hit the 'enter' key again and the screen lit up with a new, more elaborate message comprising a line of words followed by a series of numbers:

BLACK, WHITE, YELLOW, RED, NEW YORK

3.5, 12,

67498763258997 86746496688598 97684795900082 08736047437980 73849096006064 87474877345985 47932768480950

Beneath these numbers was a block of text made up of hundreds of letters without a break.

'Is that it?' Philip asked and scrolled down, but there was nothing more.

'You know,' Jo said, 'your friend Charlie Tucker is something of a legend in the math department.' She gestured to Philip to let her take his seat.

Laura looked round at her. 'Well, he wasn't far wrong on the DVD when he called himself a genius.'

'Tell me about it. Professor Norrington, our Group Theory lecturer, remembers Charlie from when he was first teaching in Oxford. Norrington worked for the CIA and MI5 before he morphed into an academic — he was a code-breaker — and he claims that Charlie was the only mathematician he's ever met who could create codes even he, Norrington, could not crack.'

'Yes, but Charlie wanted us to get this information, didn't he?'

'Sure,' Jo replied, 'But it was in his blood — he couldn't just give it away.'

'Great,' Laura replied and walked over to the sofa.

'But luckily,' Jo retorted, 'you know another genius … and my first-year special subject is Group Theory — rather important in cracking codes.' She flexed her fingers and contemplated the screen. 'And I absolutely love a challenge.'