digs had just gone. He licked dry, cracked lips and realized he was holding his ragged breath to hear better who was down there at the door; to hear who’d come knocking at so late an hour.
He could hear Lance’s Glaswegian accent … and who else? Another murmuring voice. Quiet, polite, businesslike. Female.
Lance was trying it on, some witty banter, loosened up by the beer. His easy Celtic charm usually worked flawlessly on the ‘freshers’, first-year girls looking for an older, wiser university boyfriend. But, from the murmuring tone of this female visitor, she seemed wholly uninterested.
He heard Lance’s attitude suddenly change. Clearly facing a rejection for the first time in his life. He sounded like a petulant child. ‘Well, if you really want to see the freak … he’s up the stairs. Second on the right.’
Adam heard footsteps on the uncarpeted hallway and up the wooden stairs.
His heart was pounding in his chest, his stomach suddenly churning like a spin dryer.
‘Oh G-God … it’s …’
His mind spun between two options: to go for the window, clamber out, drop down outside and run for his life. Or to stay put and meet them. See what they wanted from him.
Maddy stood outside the door. She turned to look at Becks before gently rapping on it with her knuckles. ‘Adam Lewis?’
There was no answer. But she heard something stirring inside, the clunk and scrape of footsteps.
‘Adam?’ she called softly. ‘Can we talk to you?’
A long pause. Downstairs she could hear the murmur of male voices, no doubt talking about her and Becks. Actually, probably just Becks. She was well aware the support unit tended to attract the gaze of excitable testosterone-fuelled young men. Finally she heard a shuffling sound from just beyond the door.
‘
‘My name’s Maddy.’
‘
‘No. I’m not here to
‘I … did … what I was told. I d-did exactly … w-what it told me to d-do …’
Maddy had no idea what he was talking about. But she decided the only way she was going to get him to open the door was to mention something very specific.
‘Adam … I’m here about a particular word.’
Silence.
‘I’m here to talk about
She heard the dull click of the lock turning and the door cracked open an inch. A pale face dotted with spots and the glint of spectacles appeared in the space between the door and frame. ‘Are y-you … are you …
‘The … the one who w-will explain? B-because I n-need to know … I … I …’
‘I’ll do my very best, Adam … if you’ll just let us in.’
The crack widened another half-inch as the glinting of spectacles shifted to study Becks. ‘And who’s
‘She’s a friend. She’s no harm. Just a friend.’
‘D-does she know? A … about … P-Pandora?’
‘Yes.’
Adam studied them both for another few seconds before finally his face pulled back into the darkness and with a creak of worn hinges the door swung slowly open, inviting them in.
CHAPTER 10
1994, Norwich
It was too dark to see anything, but the room she stepped into smelled musty. A room, she guessed, that was probably littered with dirty clothes and underwear lying in crumpled piles. ‘Can we have a light on in here?’ she asked.
‘Y-yes … sure.’ A moment later a bedside lamp snicked on.
The room was as small and as messy as she’d expected. But the walls … the walls caught her breath. She’d done a couple of terms of college before dropping out and getting a programming job. She’d had a room like this once and covered its walls with posters of sci-fi movies she loved like
But this — this was plain weird.
All four walls seemed to be covered with sheets of paper filled by the handwritten scrawl of strange-looking hieroglyphics.
‘So you’re pretty keen on — what? Egyptian stuff, then?’ she said, breaking the silence.
‘Uh … oh … yeah. No, it’s not hieroglyphics. I’m into cryptanalysis.’ He turned back to her. ‘You — you said you’re
Now they were through the door, she decided it was going to be best to come clean and confess she really didn’t know much, if anything. ‘Adam, we’re here because of a message you posted on the Net.’
‘Net?’
Maddy shook her head. Of course, back in 1994 they called it the Web. A different language for the technology they took for granted in 2010. ‘You posted on the university’s public forum that you’d decoded a complete sentence of the …’ She forgot the name of the thing.
‘The Voynich Manuscript,’ said Becks, helping her out.
He nodded his head vigorously. ‘Yes … yes. I did! That’s what, that’s exactly what I was instructed to do. I–I did exactly what I was told. I did what — ’
‘Told?
Adam looked from Maddy to Becks, then back again, completely bewildered. ‘By
‘Not me.’ Maddy shook her head. ‘I never heard of the Voynich Manuscript until last night.’
Adam still appeared completely on edge and wary of them both. ‘Never heard of it?’
‘Nope.’
He licked dry lips. ‘So you
Maddy raised her hands to calm him down. ‘I know about Pandora, Adam. I know that much.’
He regarded her suspiciously.
‘You’re involved … us too, in whatever this means. I’m just trying to make some sense of it. I need to know what it means too. Please,’ she said softly, ‘please … why don’t you tell me about this Voynich document?’
His eyes flickered uncertainly from her to Becks.
‘Please?’ She spread her hands in a disarming way. ‘Then maybe the three of us can figure this out together? Huh?’
‘Yeah, sure.’ He seemed relieved at the suggestion, relieved to have somebody else to share what he knew.
As an afterthought he nodded towards a stool and a beanbag. ‘Want to sit down?’
Maddy smiled. ‘Thanks.’ She unzipped her anorak and laid it on the bed and gestured to Becks to settle down on the beanbag. She was going to look less intimidating that way than standing over them both like a guard dog.
‘So?’ Maddy looked at Adam expectantly.
