zoomed in on the coin and turned the camera round so that Laura could see the screen on the back. 'That's about the best one. I could print it out for you.'
Laura did her best to ignore the exposed raw flesh in various shades of red encircling the coin and to focus on the object at the centre of the image. It showed the profile of a head, a thin angular androgynous face with a long noble nose. The person depicted on the silver coin left inside Jessica Fullerton's cranium was wearing some sort of rectangular headpiece. 'I'm sure there were some female figures on the first coin.'
'Yes, I think there were,' Philip replied.
Laura grabbed the notebook. 'Something like this, wasn't it?' She showed Philip her drawing of robed figures holding up a bowl.
'Well, it's no Rembrandt. But yes, it was something along those lines.'
'So what do you think it represents?' 'Search me.'
'And this figure. Looks vaguely familiar,' she said, pointing to the digital image. 'He, she looks like an ancient Egyptian, a Pharaoh, don't you think?'
Philip shrugged. 'Maybe. The other side could be some religious imagery. The Egyptians were sun- worshippers, weren't they? Maybe this bowl,' and Philip pointed to Laura's sketch, 'represents the sun.'
Laura stared at the photographic image and then at the rough sketch she had made. 'I'd really like a print of this.' She tapped the screen. 'And I have to do a little more digging.'
Chapter 11
'Old Fotheringay at St John's told me about Jo's accident,' said James Lightman, turning to Laura as they walked along the corridor leading to his office. The walls, the floor and the ceiling were all limestone and the sound of their shoes echoed around them. Laura followed Lightman up a wide marble staircase, and through a doorway she caught a glimpse of book stacks lining a vast room into which broad shafts of sunlight fell.
'Sorry I didn't call you, James. Things have been, well, a little crazy.'
'Good Lord, Laura, I understand. The good news is that it's kept you with us a little longer. It was only a couple of days ago that you were bidding me farewell.'
'It's given me more research time* a week at least.'
They had reached the Chief Librarian's office and Lightman held the heavy oak door open for Laura. She stepped in and looked around, struck by the familiar old rush of the senses that she had first experienced when she was eighteen. The office was a room with a vaulted ceiling and it was stacked with ancient books, antiquities and curios — a stuffed owl in a glass case, a brass pyramid, strange stringed musical instruments and marquetry boxes from North Africa. She could hear Bach playing faintly in the background.
Little more than a week after going up to Oxford Laura had spent her first morning at the Bodleian revelling in the fact that she had a pass into the most exclusive library in the world. It was a particularly memorable experience. She was in the newly refurbished history of art section when a shelf had collapsed immediately above her head, sending a collection of heavy books down on top of her.
She had been very lucky and was left only with a few bruises along her right arm, but James Lightman had been at her side almost instantly. Taking control in that gentle but firm way of his, he had insisted that she sit down and he had checked that she really was all right. In this same office he had offered her a cup of strong tea and a biscuit and had asked her about herself. It was the start of what was to become a close relationship that had been sustained throughout Laura's time in Oxford. It had survived her move back to America and infrequent visits to England. During her time at the university Lightman had been a kind of a surrogate uncle, a father figure far closer to hand than her real parents six thousand miles to the west. Although they worked in very different areas, they chimed intellectually. Something of a polymath and an eminent scholar, James Lightman was world-renowned as the foremost authority on ancient languages, with a particular interest in Hellenistic-Roman Literature. Laura's favourite era was the Renaissance with its revival of Classical influence in art, and she had heard of James Lightman from a book about Classical painting that she had read when she'd still been a precocious fifteen-year-old high-school kid in Santa Barbara.
Laura had only learned after knowing the man for several months that Lightman had once been married to an heiress, Lady Susanna Gatting of Brill. But she and their daughter Emily had been killed in a car crash in 1981, less than a year before Laura had arrived in Oxford. Emily would have been almost exactly Laura's age if she had lived.
Lightman was easing himself into a worn leather chesterfield in front of his desk and gesturing for Laura to do the same, when suddenly she became aware of someone else in the room. Sitting in an armchair near the wall furthest from Lightman's desk was a young man. He was wearing a neat black suit and a white shirt. His hair was long and greased back over his ears. He had a long birdlike nose and very prominent cheekbones.
'You've not met Malcolm, have you, Laura? Malcolm Bridges, my personal assistant. Malcolm, this is Laura Niven.'
Bridges stood up and extended a bony hand. 'I've heard a lot about you,' he said, his face expressionless. His voice was surprisingly deep, and a slight Welsh twang lent it something of an Anthony Hopkins intonation. It was a voice that seemed quite ill-matched to his appearance.
'At least some of it good, I hope?' Laura studied Bridges's face. There was something about him that she disliked instantly, but she could not put her finger on it. Then she turned to Lightman. 'I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time.'
'No, no, don't be silly,' the old man replied. 'Malcolm, we're finished with the details for the drinks evening, aren't we?'
'Yes, I think we're done. I'll get things organised.' Bridges picked up some papers from a nearby coffee table. 'Well, I hope to see you again soon,' he said to Laura before he left.
Lightman sat back on the chesterfield. 'So, what can I help you with, my dear?' he asked. 'You sounded very excited on the phone this morning.'
Laura examined his familiar face. The dark brown eyes were heavily lidded and the white hair was long and unruly. At times he had the appearance of an elderly W.H. Auden, at others the look of a biblical patriarch without the beard. He was not yet seventy, she knew, but he looked older. His skin had a leathery texture to it, while his forehead was so covered in wrinkles and lines that up close it looked like a NASA image of the Martian surface.
'It's the book I'm working on,' she said.
'The Thomas Bradwardine novel?'
'Well, no, actually.' She was a little embarrassed. 'I've decided to put that on the back burner. I'm going to write something with a contemporary setting: a murder mystery.'
'Oh?'
'I'm thinking of setting it here in Oxford, or maybe in Cambridge. Not sure yet.'
'Oh, good God, Laura, don't go with 'the other place', for heaven's sake. Unholy dump!'
She smiled. 'I want to link the murders with something ritualistic. The killer leaves something significant at the scene of each murder. At first I was thinking of maybe a ceremonial knife, but last night I started to wonder about using coins. The police find them near the bodies of the victims.'
'Coins?'
'Yes, ancient coins. Trouble is, I know precisely nothing about the subject.'
Lightman leaned over to pick up a strange V-shaped contraption that lay on an occasional table beside the chesterfield. It consisted of a tightly coiled spring with two handles. Laura looked puzzled.
'Arthritis,' Lightman said. 'Doctor's told me I have to squeeze this thing for five minutes every hour or my wrist will seize up completely' He rolled his eyes. 'I'm not convinced.' After a couple of squeezes he stopped and looked at Laura. 'But how can I help? Coins are not really my thing.'
'I. . well. I thought there would be some great stuff here at the Bodleian. Problem is, I'm no longer a member. Um … are American tourists allowed to join?'
Lightman laughed. 'Only very special ones. I imagine you're in a hurry — you usually are.'
Laura tilted her head to one side. 'Can't help it, I'm afraid.'
