The Invisible Code (33 page)

‘Except that he knows how we work,’ said May. ‘He’s been studying our methodology like a hawk for years, waiting for us to slip up.’

Bryant sat up with a start. Everyone had thought he was asleep. ‘We still have a few tricks up our sleeve. There’s someone we can use: Leslie Faraday.’

Faraday was the Home Office liaison officer, and the budget overseer of London’s specialist police units. Answerable only to Kasavian, he had
carte blanche
to investigate anything that failed to meet his approval. In the hands of someone intelligent this power would have been absolute, but Faraday was the sort of man whose mental circuitry had been soldered into place.

‘Faraday? He’s an idiot. What can he do?’

‘Oh, I absolutely agree. He’s W. S. Gilbert’s original “Disagreeable Man” – you know:

Each little fault of temper and each social defect

In my erring fellow-creatures I endeavour to correct.

‘But that’s the beauty of it; he’ll never spot what we’re up to. He can help us nail Kasavian. We need the Home Office agenda for the Paris presentation. I don’t think he’s just going to sign off on the initiative, I think he’s going to bury something else there, something he doesn’t ever want to surface here.’

‘How can he do that?’ asked May.

‘By placing security information under one of the Europe-wide anti-terrorism secrecy laws. If it’s neatly knotted with red tape and locked in an EU filing cabinet, we’ll never be able to get our hands on it.’

‘That gives us less than forty-eight hours.’

‘Then we’d better get a move on. We need to get into the Rakes’ Club. We’re not the only ones being set up for a fall; Stuart Almon’s card has also been marked. He’ll be our ticket in.’

‘Why would he agree to do it?’

‘You heard what Janice said. Almon is being sidelined. He’ll be there. Anyone who fears Kasavian is a potential ally. See if you can arrange to meet him when I get back. I want to be there.’

‘Why, where are you going now?’

‘I have to catch up with someone at the British Museum. I need some more specialist knowledge.’

As always, Bryant’s thought processes were as mysterious as Mars and just as hard to reach. Gathering up his hat, stick and scarf, he set off for Museum Street.

Georgia Standing did not look like an archivist specializing in the study of Roman lunar symbolism. She looked like a Goth who had come to London for a Cure concert and, having accidentally got locked in the British Museum, had decided to make the most of it. Her jet mane was sewn with Egyptian beads that glittered darkly as she swung towards him on high rubber boots. ‘Hey, Grandpa,’ she called, ‘you’re looking good. Still wearing my favourite scarf. Long time no see.’

Bryant waved her hands away. ‘Don’t call me Grandpa and don’t try to do any complicated young-people handshakes with me. How are you getting on?’

‘Oh, you know. The female archivists try to trip me up with smart remarks and the married men have a tendency to hit on me. Meanwhile I haven’t had a decent date since the Queen Mother died. How’s the PCU?’

‘Still going, although at this rate we may not make it to the end of the week.’

They strolled together across the gravelled forecourt, passing through a miasma of roasted frankfurters from the stall permanently moored at the museum gates.

‘I went to visit Harold Masters in the Royal Bethlem Hospital last month. The doctors don’t think he’ll ever fully regain his sanity,’ said Standing. Masters had been her predecessor at the museum before attempting to strangle someone. ‘It amazes me how many academics have nervous breakdowns or start believing that God is speaking to them through the fireplace.’

‘It comes with the territory,’ said Bryant, taking her arm. ‘They focus their attention on one area of study for so long that they lose their perspective. Poor Harold. He was always rather highly strung. Speaking of madness, I need your help.’

‘I’ll do my best. What’s the problem?’

‘Murder victims with crimson cords tied around their left wrists.’

‘You’re talking about the cure for lunacy, the sickness of the moon. A very clerical concept, the evil of the mind, just as illness was to the body. Was there clovewort tied on to the red string?’

‘No. The cord wasn’t there as a remedy. It was a warning to others.’

‘Or a remembrance, perhaps. You know, madness has inspired some pretty irrational cures. Doctors tried to teach patients “therapeutic optimism” while attaching leeches to them, and when that failed they gave them blood transfusions from animals. The bloodline carried insanity, so I guess it made a warped kind of sense to try and bleed it out.’

‘I thought this case must be about madness at first, particularly as the victim was found underneath Hogarth’s painting of Bedlam from
The Rake’s Progress
.’

‘Was she wearing anything blue?’

‘You mean the colour of Bedlam? No, she offered no other clues.’

‘We were once the nation of the Mad Monarch, poor old King George. After that, Bedlam became a dumping ground for political prisoners.’

‘Well, it appears to have become so once again,’ Bryant explained. ‘Which is why I’m rather more interested in the other meaning of the Scarlet Thread.’

‘Oh no, you don’t believe all that old claptrap, do you?’ Standing led the way up the last flight of museum steps. ‘My co-workers keep telling me Harold Masters believed it too. Wouldn’t shut up about it, by all accounts.’

‘He was interested in its mythology, just as am I. After all, the Scarlet Thread runs through the Bible as the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross to wash away sin. But it also seems to run between a number of murder victims and the government.’

‘I think you’d better tell me what you know.’

‘To do that I have to take you to a part of the museum
with which even you may not be familiar.’ Bryant pointed across the Great Courtyard with his walking stick. The vast arc of the glass roof glowed even on the dullest days. ‘Far end, down the stairs at the rear, then turn left, right and left again. According to your predecessor, at the heart of the myth surrounding the Scarlet Thread is the idea that man can only be brought into a covenant with God through the spilling of blood.’

‘Ah, the warrior Christians. Christ’s own blood had magical properties. Stands to reason, if he could walk on water.’

‘There’s your first connection between madness and the blood of Christ, right there,’ said Bryant as Standing clomped down the steps beside him. ‘Goffredo de Prefetti was the Bishop of Bethlehem, and he supposedly brought Christ’s blood to London. He put it on display at the opening of his asylum, and then placed it in the foundation stones of Bedlam at Bishopsgate. And somehow it ended up here in the British Museum.’

Standing gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘No, that’s not possible.’

‘Oh, but it is. I’m about to show it to you now.’

As they headed back into the gloom between the interconnected rooms, they passed fewer and fewer visitors. ‘I think people start getting Stendhal syndrome by the time they get down here,’ she said. ‘Too much choice; too much to try and understand. The permanent exhibitions in this section only appeal to academics.’

‘It’s probably what has kept this artefact safe for so long.’ Bryant stopped before an illuminated glass case containing the six-inch-long reliquary. It was bottle-shaped, gilded and inset with precious stones, surrounded by a complex arrangement of enamelled angels, arches and sunbursts. There was a tiny inscription on the side reading ‘
Ista est una spinea corone Domini nostri ihesu xpisti
.’ At the base of the case was a small plaque:

Holy Thorn reliquary belonging to Jean, duc de Berry, created between 1400 and 1410 to house Christ’s crown of thorns from the Crucifixion. In the possession of the British Museum since 1898
.

‘There’s a lot of theorizing that the Romans invented Christ by writing the New Testament,’ said Standing, ‘but if you dip into some of the online discussions you’ll find yourself in a world of serious lunacy.’ She walked around the crystal vial, studying it. ‘I guess it’s interesting from a mythological point of view. I can see a thorn of some sort, certainly. But the “crown of thorns” was never meant to be taken literally. It’s a traditional metaphor indicating immortality. Which makes this bauble a nonsense. But it’s a very attractive nonsense, a wonderful example of
émail en ronde bosse
. Pearls and rubies alternately arranged around the compartment that holds the relic.’

Surrounding the relic were trumpeting angels, a scene of the Last Judgement and cherubs raising the dead. At its centre, crimson and indigo jewels flanked a tiny dark brown sliver. ‘Take a look at the edge of the so-called thorn,’ said Bryant.

A faint line no thicker than spider silk ran through the crystal like a fine molten seam. ‘It’s oxidization. The air got in through a flaw in the crystal. Oxidized blood goes the colour of wood. What if the contents of the vial only oxidized on the outside?’

‘Mr Bryant, I don’t really see what you’re getting at.’

‘That’s all right, nobody ever does.’ He looked around for a bench and sat down with a sigh. ‘My knowledge of the subject is only what Harold Masters told me. Hang on.’ He dug out a crumpled sweet bag and his spectacles. ‘I made a note. On October the third 1247, the Knights Templar presented Henry III with a lead-crystal pot that they marked with the symbols of the knights. They told him it contained the ultimate relic of the crucifixion: the
blood of Christ. The gift came with provenance, confirmed by a scroll holding the seals of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, signed by the prelates of the Holy Land. They considered it the holiest and most important of all gifts.’

‘That’s understandable,’ said Standing. ‘Christ’s blood consecrates and bestows eternal life. It’s an elixir that leads to the gates of heaven.’

‘There’s a rather different story about the creation of the reliquary. Apparently there was once an imperial crown decorated with four of the supposed thorns from Christ’s head, but when times grew harsh the crown was broken up and its parts were reused to make more treasures. The possession of such items wielded huge political influence, so four new reliquaries were constructed. But it turned out that three of them were created by forgers. You can tell them apart by looking for enamelling on the backs of their doors. The fake versions don’t have that. This one does. So it turns out there’s only one known thorn, and that isn’t a thorn at all. Given that the crystal vial exactly matches the descriptions of the gift to Henry III, it would appear to contain Christ’s blood.’

‘R-ight,’ said Standing slowly, clearly deciding that she was trapped in the museum’s basement with a mad pensioner.

‘So now I have a problem,’ Bryant explained. ‘What possible connection could a female bar manager, a photographer and the wife of a Home Office official have with the blood of Christ? Is there anything else that the red cord might signify?’

‘If the blood was at the birthplace of Bedlam, I think the fact that your victim was found under such a painting confirms the connection,’ said Standing.

‘But what does it
mean
? You see my problem?’

‘Maybe it stands for something else. You know, in the same way that the “thorn” does. To be honest, this is out of my league.’

‘Did Masters ever talk to anyone else about his theories?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘So none of the other archivists have ever mentioned the contents of that case to you?’

‘I’d never even noticed it before.’

‘Then I’m sorry to have taken up so much of your time.’ Bryant rose to leave. ‘I should be off. I need to find a toilet, anyway. At my age, you always need to know how far you are from one, like petrol stations.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Standing. ‘If I think of anything, how can I contact you?’

Bryant gave her his card. ‘If you have any ideas at all, no matter how strange, I’ll listen to them.’

She watched as he jammed his trilby on to his head and set off by himself, as strange an exhibit as had ever graced the museum.

38

ROUGH MUSIC

THE RAKES’ CLUB
existed behind a discreet ebony door with brass fittings at number 42, Dover Street, Mayfair. As Bryant had predicted, Stuart Almon had readily agreed to meet Bryant and May outside and show them around.