Newton’s Fire (14 page)

‘Maybe not technically,’ admitted Pelham, ‘but I assure you it’s just a matter of time. And this way you get to say you knew me when.’ He turned to face her again, letting the BMW drift alarmingly from their lane, so that Luke had to grab the wheel and course-correct them. ‘Come on. How about it?’

‘I’m really flattered,’ said Rachel. ‘But, honestly, I don’t think I could go out with a man called Pelham.’

‘Fucking parents,’ scowled Pelham. ‘I tell you something: that man Larkin knew what he was about.’

‘Hey!’ said Luke, holding up a hand for silence while turning the radio back up loud to catch a chaotic Crane Court press conference in progress, a crowd of reporters shouting out questions.

‘What’s in there?’ yelled one of them. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Then what’s with the HazMat suits?’

‘Purely precautionary, I assure you.’

‘Precautionary for what? Anthrax? A dirty bomb?’

‘Is this to do with the memorial service?’ yelled a woman.

‘The what?’

‘The Royal Family are going to parade past here on their way to the memorial service at St Paul’s on Tuesday night. Has this investigation got anything to do with that?’

‘No comment. Now if you’ll excuse me.’

The press conference ended in a bedlam of unanswered questions. A reporter summed up and handed back to the studio. Luke turned the volume back down. ‘A dirty bomb. Jesus. They’re not holding back, are they?’

‘You reckon they’ve found it?’ asked Rachel.

‘I reckon we won’t hear a peep if they have.’

‘No.’ She sat back and spread the Newton papers out on the rear seat beside her, read again the enigmatic note on the sixth page. ‘And you guys can’t think what it was that Ashmole might have left Newton?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know a thing about Ashmole, apart from that Dee connection,’ said Pelham. ‘At least, there is
one
thing – but you’ll think me terribly immature.’

‘More than for owning a Harry Potter costume?’ asked Rachel.

‘Ouch,’ laughed Pelham. ‘Okay. Ashmole sometimes published under a pseudonym.’

‘What’s so immature about that?’

‘I only remember because of the name he chose: James Asshole.’

Rachel couldn’t help but laugh. ‘You’re not serious?’

‘Sadly, no. It was actually James Hasolle. But close enough, you know. Hey, I was an undergraduate. And, to be fair, it is an anagram of his name.’

‘They loved their anagrammatic pseudonyms back then,’ said Luke. ‘Newton called himself
Jeova Sanctus Unus:
One holy god.’

‘No way is that an anagram of Isaac Newton,’ protested Rachel.

‘Of Isaacus Neuutonus, it is,’ said Luke. ‘If you allow a little latitude, at least: “i” for “j”; a “u” for a “v”. That kind of thing.’

‘One holy god,’ smiled Rachel. ‘Didn’t think much of himself, did he?’

‘He could be pretty conceited,’ agreed Luke. ‘He believed he was some kind of seventeenth-century
counter
part of the prophets. An adept with special insight into the true nature of God and His universe. And not just
any
adept, but the greatest of the modern age, the successor of Moses, Elijah and Solomon, a man whose lifework was an important prelude to the Second Coming.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Scout’s honour. He was convinced he had a destiny. Loners often do, of course; particularly the brilliant ones. And he was born on Christmas Day, which can’t have helped. He kept it to himself, of course, along with his Antitrinitarianism and his other heresies, because you couldn’t exactly go around talking about that kind of thing, not in polite company; but it’s implicit in his private papers.’

Rachel was only half listening. Her mind had moved on. Or, more accurately, back.

‘Anagrammatic pseudonyms,’ she murmured. ‘You don’t have a pen, do you?’

‘A pencil.’ He rummaged through the glove compartment, handed it to her, along with a notepad. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’

She shook her head. ‘Probably nothing.’

‘Come on. Share.’

‘Okay. You said earlier that Bacon deliberately misspelled “Solomon” as “Salomon” by changing the first “o” to an “a”. That’s right, yes?’

‘Yes. So?’

She tapped the page. ‘That’s not how Newton spells it here.’ She held it up for him to see. ‘He’s changed the final “o” of Solomon to an “a” as well.’

‘I wouldn’t read too much into that,’ said Pelham. ‘Spelling was pretty arbitrary back then. An honourable tradition that I choose to follow myself.’

‘Yes, but Salomon was
deliberately
misspelled. That’s what Luke said. Newton would surely have known that. And he’d surely have known
how
Bacon had misspelled it too. Anyway, why put it all in capitals and then underline it if you don’t want to draw attention to it? And isn’t there something odd about the construction of that whole bottom line?’

‘In what way?’

‘I don’t know. I mean, I know crosswords didn’t exist back then, but doesn’t it read almost like a cryptic clue? And when you were talking just now, I couldn’t help notice that the letters in Ashmole are also in Saloman’s House.’

Luke frowned and looked closer. ‘You’re right,’ he said.

‘I know I’m right,’ she said. ‘That’s why I said it.’

‘And if you take those letters out? What does that leave?’

Rachel jotted SALOMANS HOUSE down on the pad, struck out the letters A S H M O L and E. ‘A, N, S, O, U and another S,’ she said. They looked at it together, but nothing leapt out. ‘Damn,’ she said. ‘I really thought I was onto something.’

‘You are,’ said Luke. He leaned over and took the pencil from her, his fingers just brushing her skin. ‘But it’s not Ashmole,’ he said. ‘It’s Ashmolean.’ He struck out the A and N, underlined the four remaining letters left sitting there already in the right order, just begging to be read out.

‘Sous Ashmolean,’ murmured Rachel, meeting his gaze with something akin to awe. ‘Beneath the Ashmolean.’

Avram was in his bedroom when he heard his nephew Uri finally returning from work. He zipped up the second holdall then went down to greet him. ‘Good day?’ he asked.

Uri shrugged. ‘Shimon wants to open in Haifa. We haven’t even got Jerusalem running smoothly yet.’

‘Shimon is an ambitious man,’ said Avram. ‘That’s a commendable thing.’ He beckoned him upstairs, put a finger to his lips, pointed to the bedside telephone and the ceiling light socket. He picked up a pad of plain paper and wrote on it: ‘They may be listening. Take off your clothes.’

Uri frowned. He was about to say something but Avram shook his head and pointed again to the telephone and the light socket. Then he jabbed the tip of his pencil in emphasis against the words he’d already written.

Uri nodded and began to strip. When he was down to his underwear, Avram handed him a clean shirt, some workman’s overalls and a new pair of sandals. He put them on. They picked up a holdall each and then Avram led him out the rear door onto the communal terrace. Whenever their neighbour Paul was away lecturing in America, as now, Avram kept an eye on his home. They went in through his kitchen, emerged from his front door out into the alley that ran parallel with their own.

‘What’s going on?’ murmured Uri.

‘Not yet,’ said Avram, and led him through the familiar Old City maze.

The evening air was pungent with saffron, cinnamon and other spices as stallholders closed for the day, gloomy from lack of customers. A Hasid freewheeled with indecent glee down the narrow cobbled street, arms upraised to the Lord. They passed through Jaffa Gate. A helicopter rattled low overhead, as much to remind people of its presence as to do anything useful. They reached the car park. Avram didn’t know precisely where Ephraim had left the truck, and there were several candidates, so he tried door handles until finally one opened. He felt beneath the driver’s seat and found the keys.

‘Whose is this?’ asked Uri.

‘A friend’s.’ Avram handed him the keys, gestured for him to take the wheel. ‘He does removals. He lends me a van from time to time.’

‘So what’s going on?’ asked Uri, climbing in. ‘All that business with my clothes?’

‘They can bug everything these days, so Shlomo says. They can even trace clothes and shoes. Apparently, they have transmitters so small that they can sew them into your hem without you noticing; yet they can still track you wherever you go.’

‘But why would they? Are we under suspicion?’

Avram nodded. ‘Shlomo thinks one of his men may have been talking.’

Uri looked shocked. ‘Does he know who?’

‘No. Not for sure. But if anyone can find out, Shlomo can. And don’t be too alarmed. He swears that none of his men know anything about me, let alone you. But it’s only sensible to take extra precautions until we can be certain.’ He smiled and patted the truck’s dashboard. ‘Especially when we have important business to attend to.’

‘Yes,’ said Uri. ‘I was going to ask.’

‘New supplies have just been delivered. Communications equipment.’

‘You’re showing me our supply route? I thought you didn’t want anyone to know.’

‘I’m getting too old for this,’ said Avram. ‘You’re the only one I can trust completely.’

Uri nodded soberly. ‘Thank you, Uncle. I won’t let you down.’ He belted himself in, turned on the ignition, began to pull out of his space, paused. ‘Where to, then?’ he asked.

‘South,’ Avram told him. ‘We’re going to the Negev.’

Pelham pulled onto the hard shoulder of the dual carriageway, the better to look at the anagram for himself. ‘Sous is French,’ he said. ‘Did Newton even speak French? I thought it was all English and Latin back then.’

Luke nodded. ‘He taught himself so that he could read St. Didier in the original.’ He turned to the first page to show them the citation from
Le Triomphe Hermetique
.

‘This Museum of the History of Science woman of yours,’ said Rachel. ‘Olivia, wasn’t it? Can we talk to her?’

‘I don’t know her number.’

‘But she’s in Oxford, yes?’ said Luke. ‘Why don’t we go see her? It’s pretty much on our way.’

‘It’s Sunday. Her museum will be shut by now.’

‘Don’t you know where she lives?’

Pelham shrugged. ‘I know where she lived back then. Odd-something. It seemed so
apt
for her. Oddminster, maybe. Oddhampton.’

Luke typed the first three letters into the SatNav and let its predictive software go to work. ‘Oddingley or Oddington,’ he said.

‘Oddington. That’s it.’ Pelham looked at them both. ‘What do you reckon? Worth a visit?’

‘Damned right,’ said Luke. ‘These people know who we are. The police and counterterrorism and god-knows who else are on their side. They’ll be watching our friends and families, probably monitoring the Internet and the media too. They’ll find us eventually. I say we fight back while we can. If we can find out what they’re looking for, we can take the story public and maybe even be believed.’

Pelham nodded. ‘Rachel?’

She nodded emphatically. ‘The sooner we get started, the better. Oxford will be safe enough as long as they’re still searching Crane Court.’

‘Good,’ said Pelham. ‘We’re unanimous.’ He pulled a lever and the roof began to pack itself away in his boot, prompting Luke to give him a look. ‘They’re after a car with its roof up,’ he said.

‘Sure,’ said Luke. ‘This’ll fool them.’

The papers began to rustle and flap on the back seat as they moved off. Rachel passed them to Luke to stow in the glove compartment. ‘Sous Ashmolean,’ she smiled. ‘What on earth’s down there? What was Newton working on when Ashmole died?’

‘In May 1692?’ replied Luke. ‘Not much. He was still recuperating from the
Principia
.’ It was understandable enough. Writing it had been arguably the greatest sustained intellectual effort in scientific history. And it had left him utterly exhausted. ‘But he began working again towards the end of the year. On alchemy.’

‘Triggered by whatever Ashmole left him,’ suggested Pelham.

‘The dates fit,’ agreed Luke. ‘And he worked himself sick over the next twelve months. And I do mean sick. He had a pretty severe mental breakdown, writing bizarre letters to Samuel Pepys and John Locke, accusing them of all kinds of fantastical stuff. Then he wrote them profuse apologies, blaming exhaustion and fumes from his experiments.’

‘Two letters hardly constitutes a breakdown,’ said Rachel.

‘There were plenty of other indicators too,’ said Luke. ‘For one, it looks like that year broke him. He published some ground-breaking work afterwards, particularly
Opticks
, but his breakthrough thinking was largely done. And then he wrote this notorious paper called
Praxis
that …’ He broke off, frowned.

‘What?’ asked Rachel.

‘Nothing,’ said Luke. ‘Just coincidence. It has to be.’

‘What has to be?’

‘This paper he wrote. It’s not dated, but we’re pretty sure he wrote it in summer or autumn 1693, because it doesn’t make sense unless he was going through some kind of crisis at the time.’

‘Why not?’

‘That’s the thing. He claimed in it that he’d achieved multiplication.’

Rachel shook her head. ‘Multiplication?’

‘It’s the ultimate goal of the alchemist,’ said Pelham, answering for Luke. ‘Newton was effectively claiming that he’d discovered the philosopher’s stone itself.’

Office of the Chief of the General Staff, The Knesset, Jerusalem

It was the kind of briefing that the Chief of the General Staff Ysrael Levin had hoped he’d never have to be given, yet there was some little part of him that was perversely gratified despite that. People didn’t make careers in the Israeli Defence Forces unless they enjoyed a good crisis. ‘And you’re quite sure about this?’ he asked Judit Hafitz, his head of nuclear programmes.

‘We’re quite sure that we’ve found bits of code that shouldn’t be there,’ she told him. ‘What we don’t know yet is how they got there, or what they do. What we don’t know yet is whether they’re malicious or effectively benign. What we don’t know yet is what they mean for our warheads and delivery systems.’