by Adam Roberts
‘Are you joking?’ Sophie said in a puzzled voice. She pointed to the theta with her elegant forefinger. ‘That’s a theta,’ she said.
‘Is it? I thought that was a little “H” in a circle. Like the sign for hospital.’
‘It’s theta, the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet. It represents a “th” sound. You must have known that!’
‘I see. Th. Yes.’
‘Well once you’ve got that,’ said Sophie impatiently, ‘the rest of the code falls inevitably into place. “9” for instance, in the Roman numerical system, is . . . ?’
Donglan waited for Sophie to finish her sentence, but it became apparent that she did not intend to complete it herself.
‘. . . i-i-is . . .’ she repeated, nodding at him with an encouraging expression.
Donglan looked at the ceiling. ‘Is it “no”?’ he hazarded.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. “IX” is nine. The question mark is clearly a rebus for the question “why?” – which is to say, the letter “Y”. And the seeing eye is obviously “see” – or “C”.’
‘Or it could be “I” Robert suggested.
‘But then the code wouldn’t make sense. It’s only when written out properly that it becomes clear what Sauna-Lurker was trying to communicate.’ She reached into Robert’s jacket pocket, pulled out his notebook, unthreaded the felt-tip pen from the rings of its ring binding, opened a new page and wrote:I X Θ Y C
Robert looked at this with the widened eyes of belated recognition. ‘Ah!’ he said. He added ‘ahhh! Aahh! Aaaah!’ on a rising series of musical tones. Then he sneezed abruptly. His eyes returned to their usual noncomprehending squint. He stared at the word. ‘Well,’ he said after two full minutes had passed, ‘It’s all Greek to me.’
‘So you do recognise it,’ said Sophie, pleased. ‘I knew it. I knew your “I’m an idiotic idiot” act was only that – only an act. I knew nobody could be as idiotically stupid as you were pretending to be! Of course, you know perfectly well that the Greek letters transliterate to—’ and she turned the page and wrote rapidly with the pen.
ICHTHUS
‘Yes,’ said Donglan, shaking his head.
‘Of course,’ said Sophie, ‘Sauna-Lurker couldn’t write that on the wall. That would have been too obvious.’
‘Obvious,’ echoed Robert. ‘Ah!’ Another sneeze was building. He widened his eyes, and opened his mouth. Sophie took this as a sign that he indeed understood the full implications of what she was saying.
‘So he encoded it. But this—’ she pointed at the pad with the felten-end of the pencil ‘—is what . . .’
‘—ahh!—’
‘. . . what he was trying to say. Ichthus. The Greek word for—’
‘Fsssssh!’ sneezed Robert, trying to stifle the explosion by pressing his hand against his mouth. This, however, only resulted in his getting a lot of saliva on his palm.
‘Fish, exactly!’ said Sophie. ‘This was the word the Early Christians took as a shorthand for their faith. This is why they inscribed fish-shapes on their catacombs, and why some modern Christians put a fish rebus in the windscreens of their cars. Because Christ took his first disciples from amongst fishermen. Because Christ told his followers that he would make them fishers of men. So this word . . .’
‘Aaah . . . chthssss!’ sneezed Robert once more.
‘Indeed – ichthus – yes, was taken as an acrostic, in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was originally written. Each of the letters in ICHTHUS stood for a Greek word in a significant phrase: I for Iesus, or Jesus as you say in English; CH for Christos; Th and U for Theou Uios, “the Son of God”; S for Sotor, or Saviour. If you were a Greek-speaking Christian of the first century, you read that phrase as easily as breathing, and you knew that “fish” meant “Jesus Christ the Son of God and Saviour”. So there has always been this close relation between—’
‘Fsssssh!’ sneezed Robert one last time, with his hand before his mouth.
‘—exactly! A close relation between fish and Christianity. The miraculous draft of fishes in Luke, Chapter 5! Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and being made fishers of men!’
‘Brilliant!’ exclaimed Sir Teabag ‘Of course!’
‘Close relationship between fish and Christianity,’ said Robert, rubbing his nose. ‘Close relationship between God and Cod.’ He sniggered. ‘You get it?’
But nobody else seemed to be laughing. Indeed Sophie, so far from laughing, was looking at him with a prudish expression of shock on her face. This annoyed Robert. He didn’t seem to be getting through to her at all.
‘We have uncovered,’ Sophie was saying, ‘a secret of a profound nature . . .’
‘And this helps us how?’ said Robert, disproportionately annoyed with Sophie and Teabag’s self-satisfied delight. ‘It just looks like a whole lot of fish to me. Sauna-Lurker says “cod” in coughing-code over the phone; he writes “fish” in Greek, or rather in code-Greek, on a mural of the Last Supper. He dies with a great big codfish stuffed in his gullet. So what? Where’s the stand-up-in-court proof of responsibility for his murder? That’s what we’re trying to find out – unless you’ve forgotten. The police have arrested this Terminator chappie, but they still think I’m an accessory. And nobody knows who this assassin was working for! And,’ he continued, his indignation rising as he realised that he was bleeding slightly out of his bashed nose. ‘And you’ll forgive me for thinking that they won’t be particularly impressed if I go along to them and say “alright coppers, you don’t need to arrest me, I’ve got a whole bunch of fish references that prove my innocence”. I mean, what exactly is the implication here? That Icelandic Cod Fishermen are responsible for Sauna-Lurker’s murder?’
‘You’re not paying attention,’ said Sophie, crossly. ‘The fish is more than a fish. The fish is Iesus Christos Theou Uios Sotor. Don’t forget what Jacques wrote on the wall upstairs: that the Catholic Church had him murdered. Not Icelandic Cod-fishermen. Fishermen of a different sort. For did not Christ tell his disciples “I shall make ye fishers of men? Is not the throne of St Peter called the Fisherman’s Chair.”
‘That’s what the hook means,’ said Teabag, pointing at the red three-quarters-circle added to the upward pointing finger of St Thomas. ‘It’s not a reference to Father Hook at all. It’s a fishing reference.’
‘I still don’t see . . .’ objected Robert, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
‘Look,’ said Sir Teabag. ‘Do you notice the detail on the central fish? The one on Christ’s plate?’
They all bent over and peered.
‘Look at the fish’s eye,’ said Teabag excitedly. ‘It’s been painted as a circle of black with a tiny white serifbar as the light-reflection in the middle.’
‘It looks like a photographic negative of the Θ!’ said Sophie, excitedly.
‘And the pattern of stippling around it makes it look as though it is caught in the hook of a question mark . . .’
‘You don’t think . . .’ said Sophie with wild surmise.
‘Let me try,’ said Teabag. He reached forward, and firmly pressed the cod’s eye nine times.
After the ninth push, the eye clicked and recessed into the wall, drawn in by some whirring mechanical device. Then the entire figure of Christ, a triangular wedge of the composition that extended down through the table to the floor, snapped free of the composition, sunk half an inch into the wall, and then swung on hidden hinges away. A triangular doorway had opened in the middle of the mural.
‘It’s so obvious!’ Sophie squealed with delight. ‘This reproduction runs from ceiling to floor. But in the Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan the original is high up, over a doorway through which the monks went to and from their refectory. The implication is obvious; Jacques had this mural placed here as a way of saying, to those with enough knowledge, “there is a doorway underneath this image . . . a secret doorway leading down to secret underground vaults”.’
‘It is,’ said Robert, peerin
g into the musty smelling darkness of the newly opened doorway, ‘as you say, obvious.’
‘Come on,’ said Teabag. ‘I’ll bet you a pound to a penny that the Mona Eda is down here . . . if it’s down anywhere.’
‘And who knows?’ said Sophie. ‘Perhaps the Holy Grail itself?’
21
They stepped through the small doorway one after the other. Sophie, luckily, had a small penlight; and using the wobbly circle of light this projected they made their way down a tightly curling circular stairwell.
‘You don’t think the assassin made it down here, do you?’ Robert asked, somewhat nervously.
‘It’s unlikely,’ said Sophie. ‘Unless he was able to crack Jacques’ code.’
‘And there wouldn’t be any, you know, Indiana Jones defence systems down here, would there?’ Robert asked. ‘Poisoned darts that shoot out of holes in the wall? Giant stones that roll down and crush us?’
‘Who knows?’ said Sir Teabag, behind him. He didn’t help matters by laughing maniacally. His hilarity echoed disturbingly in the darkness.
Eventually they came to the bottom of the stairs. The walls disappeared; they were in a large underground space, smelling slightly of must and old books, and shrouded in pitch darkness. Or, since I suppose it is unlikely that many of those reading this narrative have any first-hand experience of ‘pitch’ . . . let me say instead shrouded in a darkness the same colour as a PlayStation2 console.
‘Hmm,’ said Sophie. The sound echoed slightly. She waved the penlight around, but it made no impact on the gulping darkness.
Robert decided to test the extent of the space in which they were standing, which he did by the traditional and time-honoured scientific process of shouting the word ‘echo’ as two distinct syllables in a slightly higher-pitched and considerably louder variant of his ordinary speech.
‘-cho’ returned the room.
‘Wait,’ said Sophie. ‘Here’s a light switch.’
Illumination flooded the cavernous space. Straight away Robert thought of the words from the Bible . . . ‘Let there be light!’ A thousand gorgeous works of art, sculpture and painting, tapestries and elegantly tooled leather bindings, were suddenly visible.
‘Good gosh!’ cried Sir Herbert Teabag. ‘I feel like Carter in Tutankhamen’s tomb.’
‘There were carters in there were there?’ said Robert, distractedly. ‘What, to help schlep all the goodies out on big carts, was it?’
‘No,’ said Teabag. ‘Howard Carter, the archaeologist. He was the first person to see inside Tutankhamen’s tomb, and when they asked him whether he could see anything he said “yes, wonderful things”.’
‘Did he now,’ said Robert, not really following what Teabag was saying and instead looking wistfully after Sophie as she wandered through the treasures of this space. ‘Did he really. Big cartloads eh, how interesting.’
It was a vast underground storehouse; hundreds of metres wide and long, and filled with sculpture, painting, books and other curios. ‘Is this one of the official storehouses of the Gallery?’ Robert asked. ‘Is this where they store the exhibits they do not have space for in the actual gallery?’
‘No,’ said Teabag. ‘This room doesn’t officially exist in accounts of the Gallery.’
‘A secret gallery!’ said Robert, picking a dusty codex from a shelf. The spine carried the rather hiccoughy inscription Att. Dell. Pontif. Acad. Rom. Arch. Correc. Cod. 1A xii. This meant nothing to Robert. ‘It’s amazing!’ he said. ‘Astonishing.’
‘But it would take us days to search all this properly . . .’ complained Teabag. ‘The Mona Eda could be any of these . . .’
‘Here,’ called Sophie, from the far end of the hall. ‘I have found it.’
The two men hurried excitedly over. Sophie was standing in front of a canvas. ‘The original Mona Eda,’ said Sophie, with awe in her voice. ‘Here it is.’
On the bottom spar of the frame was written one word: ‘F.R.A.M.’
‘So this is it,’ said Sophie, in an awed voice. ‘The Mona Eda.’
‘What’s fram?’ asked Teabag.
‘She’s holding a fish,’ Robert observed.
‘A cod,’ said Sophie. ‘It’s so obvious when you think of it! Every art critic who has ever written of this picture has remarked that it is modelled upon the traditions of Madonna painting – yet the Madonna is always portrayed cradling the infant Jesus – the Madonna and Child! The Mona Lisa sits there, smiling enigmatically, with her arms in cradling position, and yet she is cradling . . . nothing? Of course not! Now we know the truth. Leonardo copied this image, this self-portrait painted by his sister. He could not copy the cod, because that would have given, as you English say, the game away. So he simply painted out the cod, leaving his “Mona Lisa” incongruously empty-armed, leaving an obvious gap in the composition.’
‘But—’ said Robert, struggling to understand. ‘I don’t understand. Why a cod? Is it a reference to the Conspiratus Whatsit Whosit you were talking about earlier?’
‘Of course not,’ said Teabag. ‘That acronym is specifically English. The Italian for “cod” is “merluzzo”, and “Conspiratus Opi Dei” doesn’t spell merluzzo.’
‘So why a cod?’ said Robert, his frustration becoming apparent in repeated little flappy gestures with his hands.
‘The Holy Grail,’ whispered Sir Teabag. ‘Il calice santo! This is the ultimate clue . . . this will lead us to it . . .’
Sophie had fallen silent, seemingly rapt in the picture; yet still listening to the words that Teabag was speaking.
Indeed the Baronet was becoming more and more excited . . . ‘I’ve long suspected it. Now this is the final confirmation! Jacques must have known too - and that was why he was killed! This is what he was trying to communicate to us, without letting his assassin know. This is it!’
‘What?’ cried Robert. ‘For crying out loud! Will you just tell me what all this means, instead of beating about the bush for hours on end? Why does nobody speak straightforwardly?’
‘You want me to speak straightforwardly?’ said Teabag. ‘Very well; I will explain in simple terms.’
And so, with both Robert and Sophie listening, he did.
22
Meanwhile, in Interrogation Room No 1, Hammer-smith Police Station, the questioning of “The Exterminator” had reached a point beyond which further questioning seemed rather pointless really.
‘So,’ said Inspector Charles ‘Curvy’ Tash, wearily. ‘You admit that you were in the National Gallery earlier this evening.’
‘Yes!’
‘But you deny any part in the murder of Monsieur Jacques Sauna-Lurker?’
‘Murder? I never murdered no-one!’
‘Can you explain once again what you were doing in the Gallery?’
‘A little extermination job . . .’ said the Exterminator. ‘In the staff canteen, at the back of the building. They’d been having a bit of bother with cockroaches, so they called me in. I’d had a busy day, and only got to the gallery fairly late. But all I did was lay traps for the cockroaches, and then leave. I didn’t murder nobody!’
‘And yet,’ put in the sergeant, as if this were a telling point, ‘you are called “The Exterminator”.’
‘That’s the company name, innit,’ said The Exterminator. ‘Central Office reckons it boosts trade to adopt the Schwarzeneggerean manner a little. People like to think that pest controllers ain’t soft, see? They want their pests exterminated, not mollycoddled. But my name is Edwin, see? Ed. R. Herring of South Croydon. I’m no murderer! It’s all a terrible misunderstanding.’
A third policeman entered the room, whispered into Tash’s ear, and departed. ‘Right Mr Herring,’ said the Inspector. ‘I’d like to thank you for helping us with our enquiries. It seems that footage from the security camera in the staff canteen has been analysed, and confirms your story. You are free to go.’
‘At last!’ said the Exterminator. ‘I’m close to tears, I don’t mind telling you. Me!
A grown man! It’s all been most trying, it really has.’
‘Well, as I said,’ repeated the Inspector wearily. ‘We do apologise for any inconvenience. But I’m sure you can forgive our zeal, given the seriousness of the crime we are investigating.’
After the pest control man had left, Tash slumped in his chair. ‘Bleeding wild goose chase!’ he complained. ‘Well it seems Mr Herring is not guilty of the murder of Jacques Sauna-Lurker after all.’
‘Which means,’ added the Sergeant, ‘that the murderer is still out there . . .’
‘Send out the squad cars. Put more men on the Gallery. Bring in reinforcements. We need to keep our wits about us. He could strike again at any time!’
‘It’s almost,’ said his sergeant, ‘as if this exterminator feller is a great red herring . . .’
23
‘What do you know about the Holy Grail?’ Sir Herbert Teabag asked his audience of two.
Sophie said nothing. Robert said: ‘I have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Is that any use? Can’t say I remember any actual grails in that film though. I do remember the rabbit, however. And the knight who gets his arms and legs chopped off.’
‘The Grail,’ said Teabag, a little more loudly than was perhaps strictly necessary, ‘was the focus for the legendary quests undertaken by the knights of King Arthur’s round table.’ The echo of his voice boomed mournfully around the chamber. ‘A “grail”,’ he continued, ‘is a kind of chalice, a wide-mouthed or shallow vessel; a cup in other words – scholars stress how common magic cups, or magic cauldrons, or magic “horns of plenty” are in pagan mythology. It’s certainly possible that Christian myth picked up on pagan models and embellished them. The “grail” is supposedly the chalice from which Christ drank at the Last Supper, which was afterwards used to catch His blood during the crucifixion by Joseph of Arimathea, who later brought it to Britain. But it is not mentioned in the New Testament: it’s first described by the twelfth-century poet Chrétien de Troyes in his unfinished romance Perceval, ou Le Conte du Graal. A great many later poets and artists have elaborated the mythos, amongst them Sir Thomas Malory’s 15thcentury prose epic Le Morte D’Arthur. In 1101 an Italian called Guglielmo Embriaco claimed actually to have recovered the Holy Grail itself during a Crusade to the Holy Land. It was supposedly a wide-brimmed chalice carved from a single gigantic emerald, and was displayed in the cathedral of San Lorenzo in Genoa; but later investigation discovered that the so-called Grail was actually a forgery, made from green glass. It has since been lost.’