Chapter Twelve #3
“The more pressure they put on me to find the embroidery, the more I started to notice that nothing there was what it seemed like. Not everyone there was working on manuscripts. They were doing other things that they were secretive about. Then I started to have trouble from one of my colleagues’ husbands, a guy called Paul.
It was nice at first to connect with him because I was lonely when I arrived, but it became scary.
He got obsessed with me, sent me lots of notes, always trying to talk to me if I saw him in the street, which was often, because St. Andrews is a very small place.
He told me he believed we were soulmates, but I hardly knew him.
He had even followed me on the day I decided to disappear.
It was frightening, and he nearly ruined everything. ”
“Did you ever confront him?”
“No. I lived alone. I tried not to engage with him. If I’d stayed longer, I would have reported him, because it was getting
scary. I had started to keep a record of everything he did.”
It didn’t wholly explain why Zofia had left in such a dramatic way. Clio pressed her on it.
“A new hire started this time last year. September 2023. A woman called Minxu Peng. After she’d been there a little while
she confided in me what I already suspected: that some of the women in the department were not really academics. She said
they were involved in stuff that seemed dodgy. They hired her to scrub the internet and set up secure networks for them, or
something like that. I didn’t really understand what she told me, I’m not an IT person, but it validated what I was already
suspecting, and I didn’t want anything to do with it. Minxu was afraid of them, too. She told me she was planning to leave
as soon as the academic year was over. She wanted to go home to her family. She missed them. I hope she managed to do that.
Do you know?”
“I don’t,” Clio said. “But I’ll look into it.”
She paused to look back over her notes. She circled the words “embroidery” and “expert on textiles.”
“Would you mind taking a look at something if I send it to you?” she asked.
Olivia
Olivia Macdonald’s phone was ringing. There weren’t many people she dropped everything for, only her husband, Judge Henry
Macdonald, or another senior member of the Order of St. Katherine. It was the latter calling.
She stepped out of the church where she’d been helping to arrange displays of fresh produce for the harvest festival service
and took the call in her Range Rover. It was a crisp, fresh morning, the parking lot and graveyard littered with the first
fallen leaves, still bright and pretty, a light mist lingering in the folds of the valley.
Olivia appreciated none of it the way she usually would. She was stressed. The Order of St. Katherine was facing an unprecedented
crisis. Information from the nurse, Viv, who they’d placed with Rose Brown had revealed a hole in their intelligence gathering
and created a new set of problems.
Her contact didn’t bother with niceties: “Diana Cornish has been murdered.”
Heavens, Olivia thought. She was profoundly shocked. She hadn’t seen that coming. There had been so many bodies. Eleanor Bruton
picked off by the Larks and possibly the academic from China, too. Then there were the problematic individuals the Kats had
disposed of themselves. How many more?
“Who did it?” Olivia asked. Nobody in the Katherinite Order had given the command, so far as she knew, and it was the sort
of decision she would expect to be involved in. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as the caller described how
and where Diana had been found. “They mean it to look as though we’ve done it.”
“I agree,” Olivia said. She had the horrible sense that everything was slipping through their fingers.
Through the Range Rover’s windshield Olivia’s eyes tracked a woman walking past hand in hand with her child, who held the sweetest little basket of apples for the church display, but her mind was miles away, already thinking about what it would take to mop this mess up—it absolutely had to be kept out of the press because of the St. Katherine link—and what it meant.
“It’s a provocation,” she said. “They’re escalating. Why?”
“If Viv’s information is correct, and the Larks have hired Anya to study her father’s collection, it could mean that some
of the manuscripts survived the fire at his library. Otherwise, why take her up to Scotland and have her work in such secrecy?”
“I agree,” Olivia said, through gritted teeth. If true, it was painful to admit that they hadn’t known or even guessed at
this until now. They should have. It would have changed everything. Now they were vulnerable, and the Larks were ahead of
the game.
She tried to focus on the issue at hand. “Is the supposition that they killed Diana in this way to divert our attention while
Anya closes in on the prize?”
“Maybe. I’m confident that we can manage the fallout from Diana’s death so it doesn’t touch us. But what we really have to
think about is whether this means that the Larks are close to finding The Book of Wonder. If some of those books survived the fire, they may have been able to unite the embroidery with whatever we suspect Rose
Brown hid in Magnus Beaufort’s collection.”
“I’m not sure we suspect any longer,” Olivia said. “I think we know.” There was silence on the other end of the line. She wasn’t the only person finding this painful. “We were so close to getting
to The Book of Wonder, and now we have nothing,” she said.
“Our information wasn’t good enough. But we can’t dwell on it.”
“No,” Olivia said quietly. “We can’t.” Her mind was racing, seeking solutions. “We can still use Rose Brown,” she said. “Just
differently.”
“Indeed, and I want to talk about that, but before we do, there’s something else you need to know.
Before she died, Diana Cornish and Charlotte Craven met with Bridget Farley, at Commerz Credit in London.
Now, if Bridget’s involved, it likely means they’re ready to put funding in place for their foundation, which indicates that things are happening much faster than we anticipated.
Their time scale has shrunk. To me it’s another sign that Anya Brown may be close to a breakthrough on finding the book and they think they’re going to cash in. ”
“How do you know this? Is one of ours married to a Commerz Credit banker?” It was nice to know that their intelligence gathering
was effective in some areas at least.
“Yes, but we assumed the Larks would be alert to that connection,” her colleague said. “So we placed some catering and reception
staff there. A coffee lady brought us this information.”
“Ha,” Olivia said. For all their work for women’s rights, the Larks’ Achilles’ heel was social prejudice. Laughable, really,
but she was in no mood for levity. Her thoughts were sharpening into strategy. It was time to play their trump card.
“We must tell Viv to abduct Rose Brown now,” she said. “It’s time to exert some leverage over Anya.” A controlled excitement
was building in her. Was it too much to imagine that kidnapping Rose could allow them to flip Anya?
“That’s exactly what I thought. Good. I’ll give the order.”
“We were prepared, then,” Olivia said. It mattered to her that they hadn’t failed entirely to predict what might be needed. Granted,
they’d been keeping tabs on Rose for the wrong reasons, but that didn’t matter if they could use her now. This could make
all the difference.
After she hung up, Olivia sat in the car for a while, regrouping and thinking about next steps. When she was certain of the
detail, she sent a message calling for a meeting of the most senior members of the Order.
Then she sent a message to Henry. Love you, darling. Can’t wait to see you at the weekend x.
He wouldn’t know about Diana yet, and when he learned, he would be devastated.
Their affair had been long and passionate.
So, best to remind him that his wife was a loving constant in his life, no matter what he was going through, and best to remind him before he even knew he’d need that little bit of comfort.
Anya
Mum’s voice was low-pitched and intense. “Anya, listen to me. There are two very important things hidden in your father’s
collection. One is a letter and the other is a glossary. The glossary is the key to deciphering the Voynich manuscript.”
“What?” I wanted to laugh. All that tension, for this? It was a spectacular delusion. They must have her back on morphine.
The Voynich manuscript was one of the most famous in the world. People had been trying to decipher it for centuries. Maybe
Mum was thinking about it because of the offer I’d had from Yale, because the manuscript lived in their Beinecke Library.
It was the most-visited item on their website and had spawned serious academic studies in cryptography and linguistics, as
well as a world of wild and rampant speculation online. I felt almost addled with relief that this was a figment of her imagination.
“Oh, Mum,” I said. “What have they given you?”
“Just ibuprofen. I promise. Check with the nurse if you like. I’m aware of how crazy this sounds, Anya, but you need to listen. The worst thing you can do right now is ignore me. I’m completely sentient.”
“Okay,” I said, to appease her. “Tell me more.”
“The glossary consists of four pages of vellum, which have been cut up into eight pieces and hidden inside the binding of another book. The letter is hidden with them. I know this because I did it. You need to retrieve them and destroy them, because the Voynich is not what people think it is. It’s not an end in itself; it’s a means to an end.
It’s the key to something else, something incredibly valuable that’s been hidden for a very long time.
I don’t know exactly what this thing is, but I do know that some people badly want it, and I mean very badly.
People have died for this, Anya. Lives have been lost because of it, and I won’t let them take your life, too. ” Her
voice shook.
“Mum,” I said slowly. I wondered if she had any idea how insane she still sounded, first the Voynich and now a mysterious
hidden object that it was the key to finding. She interrupted me.
“Anya! You must take this seriously. I need you to trust me and to do what I say. I know you’re thinking I’ve lost my mind, or that I’m addled
on morphine, but test me. Ask me a question. Ask me anything. Let me prove that I mean every word of this.”
I tried to think. The pressure of coming up with something quickly was a lot, but if there was one thing Mum couldn’t do when
she was on morphine, it was crosswords or word puzzles. The drug confused her too much.
I asked, “What do banyan trees and rhinoceroses have in common?”
She fell silent, and my heart beat the inside of my rib cage like a drum as I waited for an answer.
After a moment, she said, “That’s easy, darling, it’s us. You and me: bANYAn and rhinoceROSEs.”
I felt my blood run ice cold in every artery, vein, and capillary. She was absolutely herself. “Okay,” I said. “What do I need to do?”
“You need to find the manuscript and take it. If that’s impossible, split its binding and extract the gloss and the letter.
There are nine pieces of vellum altogether, inside the front and back covers. As soon as you have them, leave. Then you and
Sid need to run, and you need to hide so well that nobody can find you. Can you do that for me? Are you with the manuscripts
now?”
“I’m just outside the building.”
“What’s security like?”
“I don’t know.” I looked up at the castle and felt daunted. It was as solid, imposing, and unforgiving as any place I’d ever
visited.
“Pay attention to it when you go back in.”
“How do I do this?” I asked. “How do I do any of it?”
She paused. “You’ll have to work that out. I have faith in you. But whatever you do, do it now. Hello?”
I heard another voice in the background. Mum said something muffled. When she spoke to me again her voice was artificially
bright and chipper. “The nurse is here. She needs her phone back. Can you do as I say?”
“Can you tell me what the book looks like?”
“Ask me anything you want about it.” It was obvious that she couldn’t talk openly.
“Is the binding remarkable in any way?”
“No. It’s as plain as can be. Darling, I really must go. Just one more very quick thing. I’ve been wondering if you and Sid
had considered getting a pet? It might be a lovely thing to do now that you’re settled. Viv saw a very nice black cat for
adoption. It had beautiful lantern eyes. Anyway, it’s up to you of course, but I just wanted to mention it, and I’ve really
got to give this very kind nurse her phone back. Bye now.”
The line went dead.