Shattered Icon

by Bill Napier

'I think you should,' Uncle Robert agreed curtly.

  I told Debbie, 'It's a journal kept by a cabin boy who sailed on an Elizabethan voyage. He used some sort of secret writing, which I've managed to decipher. You should know, Debbie, that I was offered quite a large sum of money for it, in fact silly money, far beyond its market value. I don't know why.'

  Debbie's eyes widened. 'Wow! That sounds cool! I know that Daddy was very excited when the journal turned up. He thinks it might have something in it about our family. What do you think could be in it?'

  Uncle Robert said, 'Goodbye, Mr Blake.'

  Debbie said, 'I'd like you to dig deeper, Harry. Why should people offer a lot of money for this journal? There must be something interesting in it. Maybe even something valuable?'

  'As I said, Mr Blake. Goodbye.' The man's face was getting florid.

  Debbie was adopting an imperious tone, which was impressive coming from a teenager. 'Harry, I'd like you to take this further. Find out what's in this journal that made Daddy so excited and made people offer silly money for it.'

  Uncle Robert's face was lined with anger. 'Debbie, you're handing a blank cheque to a complete stranger. Don't you see he'll rip you off? I'm not going to stand by and watch that happen. Now' - pointing angrily at me - 'get out.' A circle of silence was beginning to spread around us, as people picked up vibrations.

  Debbie's face was flushed. 'Uncle Robert, you have nothing to do with this. Unless Daddy's will says otherwise, that journal belongs to me. And you don't pay the fees, I do. Harry, will you take it on?'

  'I'll do whatever's necessary to protect you from—'

  I interrupted the flow. 'Delighted to do so, Debbie. I'll keep you informed.'

  The inspector was polite.

  She sat, long-faced and attentive, while I told my tale. Next to her, her sergeant took notes. He reminded me of Chief Sitting Bull: squat, white-haired, wrinkled and impassive.

  'So, the value of this manuscript?'

  'It would be of great interest to historians of the period.'

  She nodded patiently; I'd missed the point. 'I was thinking of the commercial value. I mean, sixteenth century is old, isn't it?'

  'Yes, but it's not as if it's a first edition by Buenting or Theodore de Bry, or even something by Walter Raleigh. Who ever heard of James Ogilvie? You could maybe sell it to a gallery in New Bond Street or East Fifty-fourth for fifteen hundred dollars. A private collector might pay more.'

  'Ah.' There was a world of deflation in the way she said it. 'What did you say its date was?'

  '1585. Three years before the Spanish Armada.'

  'And it describes an expedition to North America?'

  'Exactly.'

  'Was there anything in the manuscript which might be of commercial interest? Maybe something that could lead to buried treasure?' She gave a polite smile to soften the insult embedded in her question: she was humouring a lunatic.

  'Nothing like that, nothing I could see. It was a straightforward cabin boy's account of an early Walter Raleigh expedition.'

  'No reason to commit murder for it then?' Another polite smile.

  'Absolutely none that I can see. All I can say is that some very funny people were anxious to get their hands on it.'

  She nodded. 'The journal came from Jamaica, you said?'

  'Yes. Sir Toby had a relative he didn't know about, a man called Winston Sinclair. This man died and his lawyer sent on the journal.'

  'Well, thank you for that, Mr Blake. It's always helpful to get a rounded picture.' The inspector stood up and extended her hand, and Chief Sitting Bull snapped his notebook shut with a sigh.

  I turned at the door. 'How did Sir Toby come to be killed?'

  'Haven't you been told? It looks as if he disturbed some people in his study. They tied him to a chair, gagged him and caused him a great deal of pain. I can't tell you too much about that except to say there was a lot of blood. He actually died of a heart attack. His daughter was at a night-club while all this was going on. Very upsetting thing for her to come home to.'

  'Surely an ordinary burglar would just have knocked him on the head? Isn't this consistent with people looking for something?'

  The standard reply: 'We can't rule anything out at the moment. What time did you meet this woman in the cathedral?'

  'Around ten in the evening.'

  'That was on Wednesday?'

  'Yes.'

  'And when did you phone Sir Toby?'

  'Seven o'clock the next morning. Thursday. When was Sir Toby killed?'

  'Between ten o'clock and midnight that evening. He took the train back to Lincoln just after you called him. Where were you at that time on Thursday?'

  'Tucked up in bed in a Bicester hotel. On my own.' I gave her the address. 'A woman tries to get hold of the journal and twenty-four hours later Sir Toby is tortured and killed. And you say there's no connection.'

  The inspector managed a smile. 'It's what you say, Mr Blake. There's nothing of interest in the journal. That is

  right, isn't it? Nothing to kill for?'

  * * *

  'Dr Khan?'

  'Zola Khan speaking.'

  'My name is Blake, Harry Blake. You don't know me, I'm a dealer in antique maps.'

  There was a pause, and then, I thought, a touch of coolness in her voice. 'From Lincoln?'

  That surprised me. 'Yes, that's right.'

  'We did meet briefly, Mr Blake, at the Ross-on-Wye bookfest a couple of years ago. The Terra Nueva.'

  Damn. I remembered the woman now. I just hadn't connected Zola Khan the marine historian with the creature I'd encountered at the bookfest.

  'I remember,' I said. 'The 1548 Gastaldi, which you misidentified as a Girolamo Ruscelli.'

  Frost came down the line. 'The misidentification was entirely yours, I assure you.'

  We'd had different opinions on the authorship of the Terra Nueva, a 16th-century map. The issue at stake wasn't the six hundred dollars valuation, of course; it was professional pride. It had been one of those jolly, bibulous events. Things had got heated and she had ended up calling me an ignoramus in front of goggle-eyed colleagues. I'd called her a poisonous witch.

  I cleared my throat, beginning to wonder if this call was a good idea. 'Dr Khan, I've come across a journal written by someone on board Raleigh's 1585 expedition.'

  'What? The Roanoke expedition?'

  'Yes.'

  'And you found a journal kept by someone on board?'

  'Yes, a cabin boy by the name of James Ogilvie.'

  'But that's fantastic! Where on earth did you find it?'

  'It's fantastic all right, but it's more than that. Frankly, I need your help. I think there's more to the journal than meets the eye, and the question of ownership is, shall I say, clouded. Can we meet?'

  'Yes, of course. And, naturally, bring the journal. Where are you?'

  'Lincoln. But I can come down right away. The sooner the better.'

  'I don't suppose you could make it to the National Maritime Museum by this evening?'

  She sounded as anxious as me. 'Sure. Probably by five o'clock.'

  'I make a damn good paella.'

  So long as you don't add poison, I thought.

  She said, 'And I promise not to poison it.'

  'Pull its head off. No, pull harder, that's the idea. Now cut the tentacles just above the eyes.'

  'What do I do with this?' I asked, picking up a glistening body.

  'There's a bin under the sink.'

  'I'm not very good at this,' I said, struggling with bits of cephalopod.

  'The problem is, Mr Blake—'

  'Harry, please' - I dropped the slithery body, retrieved it, then carried it to the bin, trying to overcome a slight feeling of revulsion.

  'The problem is the Tebbit murder. You can't seriously connect that with the manuscript?'

  I took a second to glance surreptitiously in her direction. She was much as I remembered her, late thirties, black hair reaching to her shoulders, long
dangling earrings, a smooth complexion and an accent which told of some years spent in the States. I had picked her up at the National Maritime Museum and driven the short distance to her flat. It had turned out to be three flights up, spacious and modern, with a fine view of Greenwich Park. Traffic noise was effectively muted by the heavy double glazing. The walls were dotted with obscure paintings, but no family photographs. As far as I could see she lived alone.

  'They could have been trying to persuade him to make me hand over the journal. But his heart gave out.'

  She gave me an are-you-serious look. 'That's embarrassing. It's just a fantasy thing.'

  'What do you know about my fantasies?' I said it jokingly.

  'What do you know about mine?' She was slicing through a monkfish with a long, thin knife which seemed to me to be razor-sharp. 'You need to get rid of the cartilage,' she said. 'Not with the knife. Squeeze it, like so.' A round bit of cartilage like an eyeball popped out of the end of the tentacle. 'Good. Now get rid of that membrane - the brown stuff.'

  I clawed around, up to my elbows in fishy slime.

  She said, cutting briskly, 'And you're satisfied with its authenticity? Look how you screwed up on the Ruscelli.'

  'You mean the Gastaldi. The Spanish Netherlands watermark would be hard to fake. And I showed the manuscript briefly to Fred Sweet at Oxford. He didn't raise any question about authenticity. This is vile.'

  'I'll say it again, Harry. Your notion that something in the journal was motivation enough to have Sir Toby murdered is just plain fantasy.'

  'To me it's a serious proposition.'

  'Which the police don't buy.'

  'They think I'm deluded, like I have the male menopause or something.'

  Zola managed an eloquent silence. Then: 'Okay, run cold water through the tube, and when you've done that, start cutting the tails into thin rings.'

  'I guess I'm a bit squeamish,' I said, struggling with the slippery tentacles.

  'What could possibly be in a four-hundred-year-old manuscript to justify murder?'

  'Exactly my question.'

  She sizzled stock and rice into a big two-handled pan on a heavy gas cooker.

  'The answer is: nothing.'

  'Don't forget I was attacked. They snatched my briefcase. I'd anticipated that possibility and was carrying the manuscript under my shirt.'

  'People get their bags snatched all the time. Okay, that's fine.' She gave me a sweet smile and said, 'Now you can start pulling the heads off the prawns.'

  'What do you say? Maybe you think I forged it?' I said it to provoke.

  Zola rubbed her eyes. It was two o'clock in the morning. We had left the dining-room table in a clutter and were on a white furry rug in front of a gas fire, papers sprawled around us.

  'You don't mind if I change into something more comfortable?' she asked.

  'Of course not,' I said, wondering what was coming.

  She disappeared into her room, and returned a few minutes later wearing white silk pyjamas covered with moons, stars and teddy bears. 'Wild Nights' was written across the pyjamas in small yellow letters. Her dressing gown was ankle length, red, silky, and had a Chinese dragon on its back. She was still wearing her long, pendulum-like earrings. I poured the last of the wine - our second bottle - a Chablis I'd picked up from Sainsbury's.

  She said, 'There are things which don't fit.'

  'Such as?'

  'Thomas Harriot was the navigator. In those days the navigator was called a pilot, and it's on record that the pilot was Fernandez. There are lots of little things like that. And one big thing. Harriot is smoking a pipe. Every schoolboy knows that Walter Raleigh brought tobacco back to England, but Harriot must have got it from the earlier Amadas and Barlowe expedition.'

  I put my hand to my head. 'But I can't make sense of that. Look at the spiderweb cracks. This is a standard iron gall ink, working on the paper for centuries. If it doesn't get phytate treatment in the next ten years the manuscript will be gone. It can't possibly be a forgery.'

  'You don't get it, Harry, but that's okay, I've known since Ross-on-Wye that you're not very bright.' She giggled. 'My point is that anyone who went to the immense trouble of forging the journal would also take the trouble to get the details right. My guess is that the historians have been getting things wrong. The inconsistencies are a strength, not a weakness.'

  I stretched my legs. 'These attempts to get hold of the manuscript. Could they have something to do with the secret purpose of the expedition?'

  'The secret purpose. Yes, that really has me going.' Zola picked up the pages and started to flick through them. 'Let's keep reading. Unless you're ready for bed.' She looked at me speculatively.

  I thought about that. 'Let's keep reading.'

  CHAPTER 11

  At first I believed that only the captain, Mr Harriot and myself knew of the murders. I glowed with pride in being part of this small inner circle of knowledge. But I knew little about the way in which whispers travelled through the confined space of a ship.

  And indeed, with the death of the carpenter and the mysterious vanishing of Mr Holby, rumours began to sweep through the Tiger like a plague. You saw how carefully the stowers spread the weight of the stores, Hunger explained to me. We were in a quiet corner of the anchor room playing a complicated game which he called chess. Otherwise, if they shifted during a storm or even a heavy swell, they could upset the balance of the ship and cause it to overturn. Could you have raised the water barrels, slid the carpenter underneath them, and let them subside again, crushing his body? he asked. Of course not. No man could have. Some diabolical force must have been summoned up. I did not think much of this explanation, but could come up with none better, and in any case my mind was soon distracted by my pleasure in forcing Mr Hunger to what he called 'checkmate'.

  As the days passed and routine began to impose itself on the life of the ship, the mysterious deaths became something remote. Death, I soon discovered, was part of the ship's life. Some of the more experienced men took to jumping from one ratline to another, to. save themselves descending from one mast and then climbing another. But the procedure was not without hazard, as I heard one day - there was a thump on the deck behind me, and I turned to see a mariner plainly dead, with his neck broken and his companions looking down at him, horrified. That same afternoon the man was wrapped in sailcloth weighted with stones and thrown overboard with only a cursory ceremony. It was as if he had never existed.

  Towards noon each day - or the time I estimated to be noon -I would make my way to the afterdeck. Noon being when the sun reached its highest point in the sky, Mr Harriot, by measuring its altitude, was able to calculate the latitude of the Tiger and its fleet. But as we passed the islands known as the Canaries, the sky darkened and there was no Mr Harriot and no sun, only low, fast-moving black clouds, a heavily rolling ship and fearful mutterings from the pressed deckhands. Even some older men, like Mr Bowler, had acquired a grimness of expression which added to my sense of unease.

  In the afternoon the Hog told me that I had been summoned by Mr Harriot. I was required to serve the gentlemen with aqua vitae and biscuits. For days the talk had been of nothing but the murders, but as I entered, one of the gentlemen, a pale, curly-haired young man called Marmaduke StClair was telling some long tale which ended in an outburst of laughter. Mr Harriot was seated in a corner, reading. His short pipe, ending in a bowl, again projected from his mouth. The burning herb in the bowl, I was to learn, had been brought to England from the reconnaissance voyage of Amadas and Barlowe only the previous year. Its smoke had an acrid but not unpleasant smell.

  This new air of nonchalance amongst the gentlemen restored my confidence. Between men of superior breeding and education, and the illiterate spawn of taverns and prisons, I knew where to place my trust, and I left their common room with a light step. And in the gloom of the berth-hold, while the rogues and ruffians exchanged complaints and fears as they played with dice and picture cards, I read the life of Phil
opoemen, the slayer of the tyrant Machanidas in 208 BC, and felt inspired. If only my life could be lived like those of the great lawmakers, soldiers and philosophers of the past!

  But all that afternoon the roll of the ship slowly increased, and the wail of the wind in the rigging grew louder, and the mutterings of the crew grew more alarming.

  As Mr Harriot's assistant and steward, I waited at the table of the gentlemen and officers, moving swiftly between galley and the great cabin in which their meals were served. It was a duty which I carried out with the greatest pleasure. I would stand quietly in the background. They soon forgot my presence, except when aqua vitae was to be served or plates were to be removed. Sir Richard had brought musicians on the voyage, but I must confess that the screeching of their instruments at the dinner table gave me little love for music. But when the musicians had gone and the aqua vitae flowed, the conversations of the gentlemen began to flow also. I listened with great eagerness, and each evening I was able to learn as much as Dominie Dinwoodie had taught me in all my years as his pupil. And at night, lying in my hammock, I heard a different set of tales. It was as if there were two worlds occupying the same globe, neither of which intersected.

  I soon learned that Mr Harriot was regarded with suspicion by some of the gentlemen. His passion was mathematics. But, I was surprised to learn from him, this was seen as one of the black arts, to do with conjuring or magic, even though geometry, arithmetic and astronomy were being taught in the new universities. He talked of the Pythagorean's claim that the ratios of the integers were connected to musical harmonics, and also to the motions of the planets - this latter no more than a rumour emerging from Europe.

  But when the talk turned to the Copernican heresy, which placed the sun and not the earth at the centre of the universe, I sensed that it was becoming dangerous. Faces became serious; men began to hunch forwards, listening earnestly. And after too much aqua vitae, Mr Harriot discoursed boldly on the strange beliefs of the Italian monk, Giordano Bruno. 'He was in Oxford two years ago. He believes that the stars are globes like the sun scattered through infinite space, with worlds around these stars and creatures living on these worlds.'