The Lost Testament

49

That day, Angela was to realize just how important the relic was to the shadowy group of people pursuing it.

She arrived at work at the British Museum at her usual time, Bronson accompanying her as far as the entrance gate, before he headed back home. She had protested that it was unnecessary and stupid for him to come all the way up to London with her, but in truth she was actually very grateful.

Once inside the building, she felt quite safe and secure, and got on with her work in a fairly cheerful frame of mind. That lasted until just before eleven, when a member of the administration staff knocked on her door and stepped into her office holding a sheet of paper.

‘Sorry to bother you, Angela,’ the girl said, ‘we don’t quite know what to do with this email.’

Angela took it and read the brief message written in halting English. The text read:

She read the message twice, and nodded slowly.

‘Does it mean anything to you?’ the girl asked. ‘I only brought it to you because the sender mentions the name Angila, which is pretty close to Angela.’

‘Yes, yes, it does mean something,’ Angela replied, her heart starting to beat a little faster. ‘Can you do me a favour, please, June? Can you please copy the email to my account here. I’d like to take a look at it myself, see what else I can find out about it from the header and the routing.’

June smiled brightly.

‘One of the IT guys did that already, actually. He can’t be completely sure exactly where it was sent from, but he told me it was certainly somewhere in or near Madrid.’

That was unexpected.

‘Madrid?’ Angela echoed. ‘I thought it must have come from Egypt. He was sure about that, was he?’

‘Yes. But you can always give him a call if you want to ask him about it.’

Angela shook her head.

‘No, I’m sure he’s right. It’s just a bit unexpected, that’s all. Anyway, I’d like to reply to this myself, so just forward it to my account, if you wouldn’t mind.’

Less than five minutes later, her laptop sounded a tone, and Angela opened up the email. The routing indeed indicated Spain. And that, from her point of view, seemed like a much safer destination than Cairo, or anywhere else in Egypt.

She thought for a few moments about exactly what to say, then quickly wrote a short message.

Two minutes after that, she was knocking on the office door of her superior, a copy of the email and the sheaf of photographs of the parchment clutched in her hand.