Newton’s Fire

‘What about him?’ she asked.

‘There were four of them on the vault’s walls. We know Ashmole’s role: he acquired papers and some other stuff from Dee and the Tradescants that he passed on to Newton. And he was also presumably responsible for organising the vault beneath the Ashmolean. We know Newton’s role. Ashmole needed him to complete and then hide whatever it was. And we know Wren’s role. Maybe he designed the Ashmolean vault. For sure he designed this place. And he linked the others together. But what about Evelyn? How did he earn his spot on the roster?’

‘Maybe he was the brains of the outfit.’

‘Sure,’ said Luke. ‘Because that was what a cabal with Newton and Wren was lacking: brainpower.’

Rachel laughed acknowledgement. ‘Okay. Brains is the wrong word. Leadership. Vision. Drive. Whatever you want to call it. I mean, weren’t his great loves city planning and horticulture?’

‘So?’

‘I don’t know. Designing parks, planting acorns, campaigning against pollution. Maybe I’m romanticising him, but he sounds the kind of person to whom long-term outcomes mattered more than taking credit.’

‘An eminence grise,’ said Luke. ‘I could buy that. But where does it get us?’

‘You asked about his role,’ said Rachel. ‘That was my suggestion. I never promised it would get us anywhere.’

Luke looked upwards. Sunlight flooded through the plain glass windows that girdled the base of the dome. The organist struck up again, and then the choir, a growing swell of joyous sound; and he felt a mild, toe-tingling vertigo at the sheer scale and glory of this place, mixed with awe at the courage and skill of the masons and carpenters and painters who’d risked their lives on precarious wooden scaffolds, just a stumble away from certain death. The weight of that thing. It was unimaginable. And all resting on this ring of sixteen slender pillars. But then he frowned. The pillars weren’t actually in a ring after all, but rather in eight pairs. An octagon holding up a dome; he shivered with the ghost of an idea. But then Rachel touched his forearm and it vanished.

‘Let’s go up,’ she said.

‘Up?’

She nodded down at the brass disc in the floor. ‘‘‘As below, it shines”.’ Then she looked up at the dome. ‘‘‘As above, it shines.” They do call that thing the great lantern, don’t they?’

‘These places needed light,’ said Luke. ‘You couldn’t just flip a switch.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But even so. It’s a theme, isn’t it? Something to investigate.’

Luke hesitated. The longer they stayed here, he knew, the greater would be the risk that those men would pick up their trail again. Yet the urge to find the truth proved stronger than caution. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said.

II

Jay Cowan kept trying his uncle’s telephone numbers, but his uncle wasn’t answering and he couldn’t wait forever. He put the phone down once more and went to stand in the centre of his living room. He clasped his hands lightly behind his back and stared intently at the wall. Doing this sometimes helped him clear his mind of clutter when he had consequential decisions to make.

Jay knew he wasn’t quite like other people. It had taken him many years to come to terms with this, but now he welcomed it. His uncle Avram had shown him that he was special. Being special meant carrying special burdens, but it also meant enjoying special gifts. Most of all, it meant he had a purpose; because why else would you make something special? His uncle had shown him what that purpose was too and he had embraced it with all his heart. Now it was up to him to make it happen — even if that meant allying himself with people he didn’t much care for; people like Vernon Croke. Even, indeed, if it meant deceiving friends like Luke and the woman Rachel. For Jay had liked Rachel very much. She’d been kind and pretty, and she’d smiled warmly at him and she’d been inside his home. Not that many pretty women had ever smiled warmly at Jay, or had been inside his home.

Perhaps she would marry him one day. It was possible.

Jay had known full well that there was nothing in the vault of the London Monument. Contrary to what he’d told them, he’d actually visited the place twice. He’d sent them there, hoping to keep them out safely out of the way. Unfortunately, they’d made the correct deduction by themselves and would already be in St Paul’s by now. Telling Croke what he’d deduced would inevitably put them in danger. Yet failing to tell him might damage his uncle’s mission; a mission that Jay had committed himself to helping succeed.

It was what they called a quandary.

His eyes narrowed. His lips tightened. Life missions, if they were to mean anything, had to take precedence over friendships, even friendship with the woman one might eventually marry. And it wasn’t as if he was without power in this business. He had the power to protect them. In fact, by protecting Rachel, he could prove his worth to her, making their eventual consummation all the more likely.

He walked back to his desk. He picked up his phone and made the call.

III

Curiosity and dignity had fought like rival angels over Croke when invited to climb down the rope to see first hand what lay in the underground chamber. Dignity had won.

He watched the feed on a laptop screen. The passage. The antechamber. The vault itself. No sign of it anywhere. He hadn’t expected it, not after having seen the empty plinth. Yet it was another major setback. And time was running out fast.

His mobile rang. Avram Kohen’s nephew Jakob. The one who’d sent them here. ‘What do you want?’ he asked him tightly.

‘I know where it is,’ said Jakob. ‘I know exactly where it is.’

‘That’s what you said last time.’

‘No. I only said it made sense. This time I’m sure.’

‘Go on, then. Where?’

‘I want your word on something first. Luke Hayward and Rachel Parkes are my friends. They’re not to come any harm.’

Croke scowled. So that was where they’d gone from Victoria. To see Kohen. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘You have my word. They won’t come to any harm at our hands. Now where is it?’ He listened as Kohen talked. ‘You’re quite sure about this?’ he asked, when he was done. ‘You’ve already steered us wrong twice.’

‘I’m sure,’ said Kohen. And he launched into a confusing explanation of the vault beneath Croke’s feet, of ciphers, of iron anchors and state funerals.

‘Okay,’ said Croke, cutting him off. ‘We’ll take a look. If we find it, you’ll be coming with us, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your uncle said something about supplies. Anything you need will have to be at City Airport by mid- afternoon.’ He gave him contact details for his pilot Craig Bray then ended the call and stood there thinking through next steps. He tried Walters first. ‘I told you they’d break cover,’ he told him when Walters answered.

‘Where?’

‘St Paul’s Cathedral. But listen: I gave Kohen my word that they wouldn’t come to any harm. Not at our hands. And we need him on our side, for the moment at least. So if anything should happen to them, it can’t look like it was us.’

‘Got you, boss. Leave it to me.’

Croke went over to the well shaft, shouted down for Morgenstern. The NCT man clambered athletically back