The Messiah Secret

26

The night was warm and the streets still relatively busy as Bronson and Angela walked up Ealing Broadway.

‘You said there were two things you’d found. Obviously one was the grimoire, so what was the other?’ Bronson asked.

‘The other was the box of papers we found under that revolting stuffed fox. I’ve gone through them all now. In the main, they comprise notes of Bartholomew’s abortive expeditions, but they also contain his thoughts and conclusions. On his very last expedition to Egypt he writes that he is now certain that he is on the trail of the sakina, and that someone he refers to as “Sq” took it to Sinat.’

‘And that means exactly what?’ Bronson asked.

‘Well, he obviously didn’t want to write down his thoughts in plain language,’ Angela said. ‘Maybe he was worried about somebody reading them and stealing a march on him. The “Sq” is almost certainly his own pet abbreviation for Shishaq — he’s the only pharaoh I can think of whose name begins and ends with those letters.’

‘What about “Sinat”?’

‘Look,’ Angela said, taking his hand, ‘I think Bartholomew used a very simple code here. The word “Sinat” is “Tanis” spelt backwards, and that was where the Pharaoh Shishaq had his capital city, so if he did seize any prize or treasure, that would obviously be where he’d take it.’

‘And the “sakina”?’

‘It’s an Arabic word that derives from sakoon, meaning “peace” or “tranquillity”. But it has a more obscure secondary meaning as “the Chest in which the tranquillity of the Lord resides”. In other words, that sentence says that Shishaq seized the Ark of the Covenant and took it with him to his capital at Tanis.’

‘And we both know, from the time we spent together in Israel, that both the Ark of the Covenant and the tablets of stone it protected, actually existed,’ Bronson said slowly.

‘Absolutely,’ Angela agreed. ‘Anyway, according to one story in the Bible, Shishaq seized the Ark in about nine hundred and twenty BC. In another account, the Ark was looted from the First Temple, also known as Solomon’s Temple, in Jerusalem in five hundred and eighty-six BC, by King Nebuchadnezzar and his army. But nobody actually knows, and there’s nothing in the historical record to support or deny either suggestion.’ She paused. ‘However, I have got a theory of my own.’

They turned the corner towards the Common and Angela’s apartment block came into view.

‘I think we need to find out what the original Persian text said before we go any further,’ Bronson said. ‘And unless you’ve found it in that box from Carfax Hall, I’ve no idea where we’d start looking for it.’

‘It wasn’t there, Chris. If it had been, I’d already have told you. But there was something that suggested where we should start looking for it.’

Angela stopped suddenly, looking startled.

‘What is it?’ Bronson said, his hand on her shoulder.

‘I think there’s someone in my flat,’ she said.