arched and the walls ran smooth and wet. The stone dome above their heads was grey and streaked with mineral deposits that had leached their way into the labyrinth. According to the map they were a little over ninety feet beneath the Bodleian Library.
As the men moved slowly around the room, Newton could hear Landsdown counting paces under his breath. He reached thirteen and stopped. Facing the wall, he repeated what he had done in the wine cellar of the college, running his hands along the wall at waist height. After a few moments he found what he was looking for, another metal ring, a duplicate of the one employed to secure entrance to the first passageway.
Strange shadows lay across their faces. To Newton, Landsdown's eyes looked like fathomless black discs, musket-ball holes in dead flesh. All three of them were sweating profusely and the top of Landsdown's collar was sodden and grey.
'Master. .' He paused for a moment to catch his breath in the dank chamber. 'I must ask you to prepare yourself for what you will see behind this wall. Fatio and I have been busy in preparation for your arrival and have grown accustomed to it. Please brace yourself.' With that he pulled the ring and they watched as, slowly, a panel opened before them.
Landsdown led the way and turned to secure the torch in a wall bracket. Newton had to duck beneath the stone lintel of the opening and he kept his eyes on the black ground as he walked.
This room was a smaller version of the one they had just left. It was lit only by candles that cast an insipid glow from the far end of the room. But even this seemed intense and dazzling after the nearly complete blackness they had endured for the past two hours.
At first it was difficult for Newton to focus, to understand exactly what he was seeing. In principle, at least, he knew what to expect. He had studied the ancient texts, following carefully the diagrams and the instructions of the Ancients, but it still seemed like something that could not be real.
At the far end of the room a large golden frame had been built in the shape of a pentagram. To each side stood ornate candleholders six feet high; they held huge candles that had burned down to perhaps half their original length. Wax had dripped in piles around the holders and onto the stone floor beneath.
At the head of the golden frame a human brain had been positioned. To the left, on the next apex, a heart had been attached to the gold. As his gaze moved down, Newton saw two kidneys placed at the right apex. Lower down, another organ, what he knew to be a gall bladder, and at the base lay a liver, moist and glistening in the diffused light. A powerful odour reached his nostrils. It was Oil of Turpentine, which, through long hours, Fatio had distilled from the sapwood of the terebinth tree.
Newton looked back at Landsdown and Nicolas Fatio du Duillier. He was breathing heavily and sweating. The cuts on his face had opened so that his sweat blended with blood and ran in dark red lines down his cheeks and neck. His eyes were wide with a demonic excitement that neither of his companions had seen in him before. When he spoke, his voice was cracked with fatigue but it was nonetheless alive with confidence. 'I am pleased,' he hissed, a faint and entirely humourless smile playing across his lips. 'I am exceedingly pleased.'
Chapter 27
Oxford: the evening of 28 March
Sitting alone in the conference room of the Oxford police station, Detective Chief Inspector John Monroe watched the digital clock on the wall flick forward a minute to 10.04 p.m. He was not used to resenting the demands of his job but at this moment he did. By now, on his one free evening a week, he should have been heading home from the Elizabeth Restaurant in a cab with Imelda, the bright, engaging and attractive thirty- something physiotherapist he had met a month earlier. Instead, here he was, picking at the remnants of a Marks and Spencer sandwich that had seen better days and waiting for the arrival of three uniformly unattractive male colleagues.
Sipping at his stewed and bitter coffee, he tossed a screwed-up paper napkin onto the plate beside a half- eaten slice of bread and a few slithers of tomato, pushed his chair back and paced over to a whiteboard on the nearby wall. The whiteboard was
divided into four broad columns. At the head of each a collection of photographs had been taped into place and each column was filled with writing in different-coloured markers. The first column was headed with the words: 'Rachel Southgate'. The second column was titled 'Jessica Fullerton', the third: 'Samantha Thurow/Simon Welding'. At the top of the last column the word 'Miscellaneous' had been written in bold red strokes. He read the words he had put there earlier that evening:
Laura Niven/Philip Bainbridge Astrology/Alchemy? 1851 /Professor Milliner Coins Leather/Plastic
He heard the door open behind him. The forensics officer, Mark Langham, led the way, followed by a tall, thin man in uniform. He was in his late fifties but looked younger. His short white hair, pale blue eyes and chiselled cheekbones gave him a Teutonic look, and he exuded an authority that appeared effortless and had little to do with the bands of ribbon on his chest. Eighteen years earlier, when he had joined the force, DI Piers Candicott, as he was then, had been Monroe's first boss.
'Monroe,' Commander Candicott said as he entered the room. His voice was deep and surprisingly warm. 'I'm glad you could make this ungodly hour — couldn't do anything about the schedule, I'm afraid.'
The two men shook hands. 'That's quite all right, sir,' Monroe replied.
'John, this is Bruce Holloway, my press liaison officer — spends all his time on the phone to filthy journalists, I'm afraid, poor chap. But he gets things done.'
Holloway looked to be in his mid-thirties. He was a small man, no more than five-six, stocky and with unruly brown hair. He nodded at Monroe, his face quite expressionless, mumbled 'Hello,' and shook the DCI's hand.
Having chucked the remains of his supper into a waste bin, Monroe took the chair nearest the whiteboard. Candicott sat at the head of the table and Langham and Holloway took their places on the side facing Monroe.
'So, what's the state of play, then, Detective Chief Inspector?' Candicott asked.
'My team are working around the clock,' Monroe replied, returning the intensity of Candicott's gaze. 'We've been following a lead from some forensic evidence found at the scene of the second murder.' He glanced at Langham. 'So far, this has just taken us up blind alleys.'
'Nothing concrete, then?'
' Whoever's behind this will make a mistake before too long. They always do.'
'Well, let's hope it's sooner rather than later, John.'
'There is also the fact,' Holloway added, 'that the press are getting jumpy. Another murder and I think Wapping will relocate to the Banbury Road.'
Monroe had never yet met a press officer he liked, and although Holloway was meant to be a cop first and a 'liaison officer' second, to the DCI he had the same demeanour as the journalists and ghastly PR people he had met throughout his career.
'Well, thank you for that little reminder,' Monroe retorted, unable to keep the acid from his voice. 'I'll bear that in mind.' Turning to Commander Candicott, he added: 'Sir, at present I have twenty-two officers and forty-three ancillary staff working on this case. We are sifting through every piece of evidence, following up every lead and brainstorming every possible connection to these murders. After four murders in two days, the last was seven days ago. This has given us a breathing space, but in spite of what I said earlier, we are up against a very thorough, very. . professional killer.'
Candicott simply nodded wearily. 'Sir, if I might. .' Langham addressed Monroe as though he was the only other person in the room.
'We have something new from the lab.' He passed a single sheet of paper to Monroe.
'One of my team has found a trace of blood in the upstairs room of the house close to the river, the scene of the second murder. It doesn't match the victim or any of the family.'
Monroe studied the read-out from the DNA analyser.
'Unfortunately, we can't match the DNA to anything on the database either,' Langham added.
'Well, this is something, is it not?' Candicott's cold eyes were bright. 'I assume your team are back at the scene, going over every inch of the place again?'
'Naturally, sir,' Langham said.
