Alchemy (40 page)

Gradually my eyes begin to pick a shape out of the gloom: a big fuse box that looks as if it dates back to the original Victorian Gothic building. Beside it gleaming in white plastic is a new installation. I cross the coldly sweating brick floor and pull carefully on the front corner. Suddenly it drops forward on a hinge at the bottom. There’s a main fuse and two switches in the off position. I close the cover. Time to get out of here. At the door I peer quickly round the frame. There’s still no one about. I step through, pull the door to behind me and drop the iron latch, expecting every second to hear a voice demanding to know what I’m doing.

My legs are watery with fear and tension but I have to go on. With another quick look round I start up the iron stairs hoping they’re not going to collapse in a heap of rust under my feet or the old brackets fixing to the brickwork be wrenched out with my weight, letting the whole spiral cascade in slow motion down the side of the chapel, with me clinging on, like in a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

The two higher doors are duplicates of the one at the bottom with the same big iron ring latches. I open the lower one and
step through. The floor is stone not brick and there’s the same outline of a door opposite. I need to know what’s out there. Surely you can’t just walk out on air with a sheer drop to the chapel floor. Splat! I can’t hear the noises up here. Is it because I’m too high? Or have they really stopped? I must find out if that door will open and what happens on the other side. I cross the floor and feel for some kind of handle.

It’s the same ring as the others. I turn it as silently as I can and edge the door open a crack. I put my right ear to it and listen. Silence. I risk opening the crack up a couple of inches and put my right eye to it. I can see that the door opens on to a gallery with a twisted barley sugar railing only a few feet away. I crouch down and open the door enough to get my head through so that I can turn it to look in both directions and across at the far side of the chapel. The gallery runs all the way round. There’s not a sound from below. I crawl out on hands and knees and look down through the twisted fretwork of rails. The chapel is empty. The big doors are shut but I don’t risk standing up.

Craning my neck to look up I see there’s another smaller gallery running round the inside of the cupola. That must be what the top door opens on to. Looking down again I see a giant screen has been fixed to where the altar would have been. Then I notice at equidistant points along the railings what looks like some kind of spotlight. There’s one not far from the door. It seems to have a strange bulb. Halogen perhaps. But I daren’t go out on to the gallery to examine it properly. Instead I crawl backwards through the doorway. Stand up. Close the door and go out on to the iron staircase into a sunlight that hurts my eyes.

At first I can’t see at all and feel naked, exposed up there against the wall like a fly waiting to be swallowed. Again I’m lucky and there’s no shout of command to come down. When my eyes have adjusted I begin to climb the last bit of staircase.
By now I’m an expert with these doors. It occurs to me that the locks and hinges must have been used or even oiled recently for them to work so smoothly. I step off the emergency stairs into the last little darkened room. This time I cross boldly and open the door a whole inch. The second gallery, railed like the first, is in front of me but above it are the panes of the cupola letting in a strong white light. I glance down and my head swims a bit with vertigo. Not for the first time I decide abseiling, skydiving and all the dangly sports aren’t for me. I cling on to the door frame for support.

Looking along and across this gallery I see there seem to be small round cylinders like tins of beans, positioned like the spotlights below but I can’t make out what they are and vertigo stops me going out to examine them. I feel as if I’ve been climbing up the chapel wall for hours. I know my luck is about to run out and I’ll be spotted at the last minute. The way down seems more perilous than the climb up and my legs are decidedly shaky by the time I reach the bottom. For a minute I lean against the wall risking discovery, vulnerable on the ground now, in the open.

The campus is deserted again.

I reach the bike shed without challenge and feel a surge of relief when I’m back on the Crusader heading towards London. No stopping for a cosy chat with Galton today. I put it all out of my mind and concentrate on the traffic. As I weave in and out my confidence is gradually restored by the sense of being in control again, exercising a skill I enjoy.

As soon as the office door shuts of course the questions start. What’s really going on at Wessex? Is some holy floor show planned for Sunday? That must be what the screen’s for. An inspirational video to encourage the troops. If I could get in there I might find out. But it’s clear their security is going to be tight with Molders on the door vetting everyone who tries to get in. Only the elect allowed. Not even the ordinary theologs.

The only way to find out would be to hide in one of the upper rooms off the staircase. You’d be trapped. Unless you had some other way down into the chapel. Wait until the Gathering was all over and hope one at least of the doors wasn’t locked. You might have to wait a long time in the dark. You’d need a torch and a rope at least. Today has shown me I’ve no head for heights but I might have to face it.

There are safety ladders I’ve seen advertised that can hook on to a windowsill in case of fire. You could do it in stages from one gallery to the next. Don’t be wet, Jade. Each climb wouldn’t be so far. You wouldn’t need a very long ladder. Just something light and strong like mountaineers have. I’m mad even to think of it but how else can I find out what’s going on? A pity there wasn’t a key for any of the doors. There were locks as well as the ring handles and latches. Probably Molders keeps them hanging from her belt like a wardress. You might be able to stuff up the locks with chewing gum or putty so that the keys wouldn’t go in. I’m going round and round on this hamster wheel. I have to get off and try to sleep.

But the phone rings. It’s Joel. ‘You OK? Long time no see.’ His familiar voice stops the wheel.

‘Let’s have a drink one evening next week. I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch. I’ll explain everything when I see you.’

‘Lust or work?’

‘Work. Look I have to do something on Sunday that could be dangerous. I need you to know where I am so that if something goes wrong you can tell the police. I can’t explain it all now. There isn’t time and anyway I couldn’t do it on the phone. I’ll ring you on Monday. If I don’t, ring the fuzz and tell them to go to Wessex University. I’ll send you an email with a complete address.’

‘Hey, Jade, do you have to do this whatever it is?’

‘I do, Joel. I really think I do.’

‘Take care.’

‘I will, I promise.’

I pour myself a drink, whiz off the email to Joel and settle down to watch a TV cop solve an improbable murder. The other channels are all offering hospital dramas or sport. For a moment I consider playing a little
Rosenkavalier.
But that was another country and besides the wench is dead. Just as I’m yawning over the convoluted improbability of the sleuth’s intuitions the phone rings again.

‘Jade?’

‘Charlie!’

‘My friend says that something will happen on Sunday.’

‘I know, Charlie. That’s the Eastern Pentecost they were told to expect.’

‘He says the elect are even more hyped up. They’re called to the chapel at eight o’clock in the evening.’

‘I’m going to find a way to be there.’

‘Where?’

‘In the chapel, to see what’s going on.’

‘How will you do that, Jade?’

‘There’s a back way in to the galleries up an outside iron ladder like a sort of fire escape.’

‘Suppose you’re seen.’

‘I’ll take care not to be.’

‘I don’t think you should do this alone. It’s too dangerous. My friend and I will come with you.’

I’m both nervous that three people are harder to conceal than one but relieved to have backup. ‘We’ll need a torch and some sort of rope ladder in case we have to climb down into the chapel because the doors to the staircase have been locked behind us.’ I don’t mention the chewing gum. That seems too much like the boy detectives. But this is little old England where traditionally we prefer to murder by stealth according to the rules of fair play.

After many hours the jolting of the cart stopped again. I was lifted out in the sack and as I judged thrown over a shoulder as if I were a bag of com, carried inside and put down on a cold floor that smelt of earth. I cried out for them to untie the sack so that I could breathe more easily.

‘This is some witch’s stratagem to work upon us to free her so that she may charm us with a spell and make her escape.’

‘I desire only to breathe and for a drink of water.’

‘It were a pity if she should suffocate before we have the money Master Avery.’

‘True Woodman.’ Twere a pity indeed. I will undo the mouth of the sack so that she may put out her head.’

I felt him pulling at the cord above my head and in a moment it was freed and I could breathe again yet still lay on my side doubled up as I had been forced by the shortness of the sack so that now all my limbs were numb and I could not stand up of my own will even if I had dared to attempt it.

‘There, see our kindness to the witch,’ the one I judged to be Avery said. ‘She shall have some water to drink lest she curse us.’ And he put a bottle to my lips for me to suck on. ‘Now we must to the doctor for our pay.’ He picked up the torch he had lodged in a jar by the door whose flame threw the men’s shadows hugely on the walls of the round shed where I lay. I could see no window by its light but only the thatch of the roof above. I judged it some kind of store place. They opened a low door and taking the torch went outside. I heard a bolt being shot and I was alone in a blackness so complete I seemed to have lost the sense of sight.

As soon as they were gone I rolled in the sack until I fetched up against a wall and was at last able to sit up, wriggling the upper part of my body free of the folds of cloth that restrained me. By pressing my back against the wall I was able to raise myself to stand but when I tried to walk my bound feet made me fall down so that I was forced to begin again. Nevertheless
I persevered to get against the wall. Sitting there in the darkness I began to work on the bonds that tied my hands before me and after much twisting I felt one hand loosen a little and working at it harder although it chafed my wrist, I finally got it free. Then feeling in the dark I was able to free my feet to stand and walk about until the numbness had gone from my legs.

Next I felt round the rough walls until I came to the door. I pushed against it but it was bolted fast from the outside and although it gave a little in its frame I knew I did not have the strength to push it open. A dozen plans for escape went through my head but I had no means to put them into execution. I had gained freedom from my bonds but was still a fast prisoner. I sat down again beside the door and a strange drowsiness compounded of fear and exhaustion overcame me. I fell into a kind of slumber under the blanket of darkness that enshrouded me.

Voices from beyond the door aroused me. The bolt was being drawn back and the light of a torch was so bright that my eyes that had been so long in the dark were dazzled.

‘If you have snatched the wrong one your pay is forfeit,’ a voice said, the voice of Dr Adrian Gilbert. ‘You were to take a man not a girl.’

‘And indeed sir we thought we had. But see the witch has loosed her bonds, by witchcraft, no doubt with the help of the devil for we had her tied tight.’

‘Hold up the torch. This is Master Boston certainly.’

‘Yet see sir.’ One of them stepped into the hut, reached forward before I could move away, and tore open my shirt. ‘See a witch’s teats.’

‘You are right. She or he whichever must be brought at once before the justice, not to escape with honeyed words. Perhaps this is a shapechanger. This time the charge will not be practising without a licence but seeking the life of the Lady Anne
by witchcraft. And others too perhaps. By what name will you be charged?’

‘That I shall tell only to the justice.’

‘Tie her hands again and bring her out.’

Now indeed I saw that I was in danger of my life for all know that bringing about a death by witchcraft carries death for the witch in turn. My hope was that the Lady Anne still lived however sick and might yet recover if only for a time enough to save my life, for however desperate my condition I did not want to die.

Again I was pushed stumbling along, this time weakened by want of food and sleep. I saw that we were passing under the garden wall of a house. A stinking hand was put over my mouth to stop me from crying for help and I was hurried towards a cart, picked up bodily by the two men and thrown down on the floor which was dirty and smelling of stable litter. At once the cart moved off with one of the men up on the driving board while the other walked behind. Dr Gilbert rode beside me on a horse I had myself often ridden accompanying my lady. The change in my state brought salty drops of weakness to my eyes yet I resolved they should not see me weep to give them greater power over me and so I swallowed hard to keep back those tears that threatened to unman me quite.

Through the slats in the cart I saw that we had passed beyond Wilton and were now in the country between that town and Salisbury which we reached all too soon although our pace was slower until the cart began to go faster down the hill into the city so that the man beside it was forced to run along holding on to the cart tail. Now I was jostled and bruised over cobbles as we approached the city.

‘Where to doctor?’

‘The house of Justice Ludlow where he lodges beside the gaol in Fisherton Street.’

So we were not to go into the city proper but stop short
before the bridge and St Thomas’ church, where I had sometimes gone with my father in another life. I was lifted out and stood upon my feet while one of the men knocked and bellowed at the door of a house whose lineaments I could not discern in the dark.