The Doomsday Testament

XII

His head felt as if it was about to explode. For a few frustrating moments he had been within inches of one of the world’s greatest missing artworks and a coup that could have made him a fortune and restored his battered reputation. Just as quickly, it had been stolen from him.

After the shock, came the questions, so many of them; like an avalanche. Who had — so carefully, with scalpel or razor blade — removed the key pages? Not Matthew, who had somehow safeguarded the journal through six years of war and kept it secret all this time. His mother? Had she found it and read it; discovered some awful family secret? If she had wanted to hide something why not destroy the whole book? And if it had been someone else, why leave the journal behind with all its tantalizing clues? The more he considered it, the greater became his certainty that those final pages contained some momentous revelation.

In an explosion of sublime clarity he felt the old man’s presence beside him and he understood. The journal had always been meant for him.

Now he found himself able to look at the blue leather volume in a different way. If Matthew had always wanted him to have it, did he not also want him to have the treasure at its very heart: the Raphael? Perhaps there were other clues he’d missed. He would read it again with fresh perspective, go through it line by line. Matthew Sinclair’s life had been changed irrevocably by his meeting with Walter Brohm and that was where the key to the mystery lay. Poor Stanislaus Kozlowski could have given him the answers he needed. Now there was only one road to follow. To understand Matthew, he must understand Walter Brohm.

Almost reverentially, he picked up the journal and opened it where the pages had been so clinically removed. He’d been so infuriated by the discovery that he hadn’t inspected the damage as closely as he might. Now that he did, he was struck by something curious. It was as if his subconscious was sending him a message in an indecipherable code. He’d had a similar sensation when looking at paintings that were later revealed as fakes; he just hadn’t had the wit or the insight to comprehend them. This was subtly different. An alarm bell was ringing…

He reached for the magnifying glass on the desk and focused it on the roots of the missing pages. It confirmed his original suspicion that the removal had been carried out with great care and in a way that did minimal damage to the journal. The responsible party had valued what he was removing and what he was removing it from. That realization brought him back to Matthew. But why? If he had wanted Jamie to have the book why not give it to him in its entirety?

As he weighed the open journal in his hands he felt a prickle of anticipation as he realized something that had originally eluded him. The book balanced almost perfectly between his palms, but it shouldn’t. The missing pages should make it slightly lighter at the back than the front: only a little, but enough to be noticeable. Now he closed it and looked at it side-on. The missing pages weren’t the only difference between the front and the back, the endpiece was imperceptibly thicker than the frontispiece. Was that usual in a book? He couldn’t be sure. He chose a title at random from the shelf nearest to him, wondering at the coincidence that placed a leather-bound copy of Pope-Hennessy’s Raphael in his hand. He studied it from the same angle he’d looked at the journal. No, the front and back covers were identical in thickness. He stood up and walked to the window. This was when he needed to be at his calmest, but the adrenalin rushing through him made the whole room spin. He took a deep breath and returned to the journal. He prodded the blue leather of the back cover. Almost undetectable, but it was definitely more cushioned than the front. But when he looked at the interior board under the magnifying glass he could see no evidence that it had been tampered with.

He took the book back through to the front room with its packed bookshelves and little-known, haphazardly hung works of art, placed it on the coffee table beside the window and poured the large glass of Macallan he’d promised himself earlier. Sitting back, he studied the journal from a distance for a long time, sipping the mellow malt whisky and feeling the burn rise to wrap itself around his heart. When he made his decision it was surprisingly easy. He hunted through the nearby drawer for the scalpel he knew was there somewhere, and worked the blade carefully around the half inch of stretched leather that overlapped the heavy card on the inside of the back cover. He found himself sweating. One part of him worried he was committing sacrilege, but another insisted he had his grandfather’s permission, his encouragement even. When he’d peeled back the torn leather, he very gently worked the point of the knife beneath the card so he could prise it clear.

Jamie hardly dared breathe as he levered back the covering. His first reaction was disappointment. Not the missing pages. Of course, they would never have fitted into the space he had uncovered. Then came dry-mouthed anticipation. Whatever this was, it was important to Matthew Sinclair. It was a neatly folded piece of what appeared to be fine cloth. Carefully, he drew it clear and unfolded it on the coffee table.

A perfect square of silk tinted in dull shades of green and brown. At first it meant nothing. A cheap scarf or a watchmaker’s cloth? After a moment of careful concentration he found himself staring at a faded map of Germany’s land mass. Bending low he searched it for any markings or symbols. It couldn’t be that simple — X only marked the spot in pirate fiction — and it wasn’t. Apart from a few tiny broken stitches the silk was unblemished. So what was its purpose? Very slowly suspicion became certainty. It was an escape map. He’d seen enough war films to know that every airman who risked being shot down over Occupied Europe had been issued with one like this, along with a compass and enough local currency to give him a chance of reaching the nearest safe haven. It was only natural that the Jedburgh teams, parachuted into the very heart of enemy territory, should be similarly equipped. He ran his hand over the silk. This had been Matthew’s. He might even have worn it around his neck. It made him feel closer to his grandfather than ever. But why, when it apparently contained no information, had it been hidden inside the book cover? He had his answer when he turned it over.

On the reverse was a crudely sketched symbol of a type he’d never seen before.