Newton’s Fire

by Will Adams

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘There were these buyers we call the three Ms,’ said Luke. ‘They have no connection with each other, except that they each bought one of the missing lots, and their surnames all begin with the letter M. May, Manning and Martin. Not much to go on, but I figured I could narrow it down. For example, they most likely lived in or around London. Any further away, they’d likely have bid through a dealer. And if they’d made a special trip for the auction, then surely they’d have bought more than one lot.’

  Pelham nodded. ‘Makes sense.’

  ‘So I went through various 1936 London and Home Counties directories for plausible candidates, then tracked descendants through obits and wills and the like.’

  ‘Sounds a hoot.’

  ‘It was, curiously. Or a distraction, at least. Anyway, I got no joy from that, so I tried alternate spellings instead. Mays, for example. Munnings. Martyn with a “y” rather than an “i”.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Pelham. ‘I sense we’re getting somewhere.’

  ‘A Bernard Martyn lived in an apartment in Bruton Place in 1936, just a short stroll from Sotheby’s. I checked into him: a particle physicist with a special interest in light.’

  ‘So bound to be interested in Newton?’

  ‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? And likely to be pretty well off, too, with an address like that. Not that these lots were expensive; not for what they were. Ten to fifteen guineas, that kind of thing. About?500 in modern money. The entire collection only raised nine grand.’

  ‘What would they be worth now?’

  ‘God knows. They don’t often come up for sale. And it depends massively on how interesting it is. Twenty or thirty grand for anything half decent. And if it’s unusual, if it hints at original thinking …’ He shook his head. ‘A hundred grand easily. Quite possibly two or even three.’

  ‘No wonder your client wanted them.’

  ‘Anyway, Bernard Martyn died back in 1969. He was childless, so his estate passed to his nephew George. George died too, a few years back, leaving the residue to his widow Penelope. I tracked her down to the family pile in the Fens, so I wrote to ask her if, by any chance, she knew where Bernard Martyn’s belongings were. They’re up in my attic, she replied, covered by dust sheets. No one’s looked at them in decades.’

  ‘So you got in your car and drove on down?’

  ‘And what should I find in one of the boxes,’ agreed Luke, ‘but four pages of Isaac Newton’s alchemical notes?’ He told Pelham everything that had happened since, finishing with his arrival at Cherry Hinton Science Park.

  ‘Bugger me,’ said Pelham. ‘You have had a day.’

  ‘So you see why I need Rachel Parkes. Her aunt’s email and those photos are all I’ve got. If those bastards delete them, I’m toast.’

  II

  The policeman was uncommonly tall and thin, so that he looked disconcertingly like a marionette as he climbed out of his patrol car. And he kept dabbing at his septum with his index finger, as if tickled by allergies.

  ‘Thanks for getting here so quickly,’ said Walters, shaking him by his hand.

  ‘Sod all else going on,’ said the policeman. ‘Never is, round here.’ He folded his arms and leaned back against his car. ‘So you’re counterterrorism, right?’

  ‘We can’t discuss that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking of getting a transfer myself, see if I can’t get some proper action. What’s it like with your mob?’

  ‘I’m sorry. We really can’t discuss it.’

  He grunted and reached back inside his car for his cap. ‘So what do you need me for?’ he asked. ‘The governor only told me where to come.’

  ‘There’s a house we want to look inside. But we can’t have the locals complaining, so we need to show them we’re on the side of the angels.’

  ‘Mannequin duty, huh. Ah, well.’ He gave the house a gloomy look. ‘So this is part of the great terrorist nexus, eh? Should me and the boys be keeping an eye on it?’

  Walters shook his head. ‘It’s information we’re after, not bad guys.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘And not a word about this, right? Not to anyone. We’re talking national security here.’

  ‘So I was told.’

  ‘Good.’

  Walters joined Kieran and Pete by Parkes’ front door. The locks put up little fight. They spread out inside, taking different rooms. The kitchen was clean but cramped, with shabby units and a noisy fridge. Walters peeled himself a satsuma as he flipped through a stack of bills.

  ‘Two bedrooms,’ said Kieran, appearing at the door. ‘One’s an old biddy’s; the landlady, I assume. The other is Parkes’. Her desk’s set up for a laptop, but there’s no laptop. She must have it with her.’

  ‘Any other devices?’

  ‘None that I can find.’

  ‘Shit. Then what do we do?’

  ‘They have broadband. I can put an intercept on the router. When she logs on, we’ll piggyback in with her, then hijack her ID and disrupt her connection. She’ll assume it’s a glitch with her router or her machine. By the time she’s turned everything off and on again, the email will be history. She’ll never even know it was there.’

  ‘How long to set up?’

  ‘Five minutes. Maybe ten.’

  Walters nodded. ‘Then get to it,’ he said.

  III

  Noxious smells and unnerving clanking noises were coming from beneath the bonnet of Rachel’s Rover as she bunny-hopped along her street. She clutched the steering wheel tight and let out a heartfelt curse. Everything seemed to be going wrong today. The meeting at her brother’s care home had been a near disaster. When you had nothing with which to bargain, you made rash promises instead. Ten grand by the end of the month. How on earth was she to find that? She was already pushing her luck at both her jobs. Her room was as cheap as Cambridge could offer, she’d pared every surplus expense from her life, had nothing left to sell. She could ask Aunt Penelope for help, but her pride revolted at the thought. If Penny’s odious sons found out she’d given Bren any more money, they’d cut her off from her grandkids out of sheer spite. Rachel would never forgive herself if-

  A police car was parked outside her house, a gangling officer leaning against it. And she could have sworn she saw movement in the front room, even though Betty was in Ireland for a fortnight. Her heart sank. They couldn’t have been burgled, could they? Not on top of everything else. She parked and hurried across. ‘What is it?’ she asked the policeman. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘Do you live here, ma’am?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  The front door opened and three men came out; plain-clothes officers, presumably. They looked big and purposeful and more than a little mean.

  ‘This young lady lives here,’ the policeman told them.

  The eldest of the three was blond-headed, about forty, wearing an expensive pale-grey suit. When he looked at her, he gave a little double blink that she found strangely unnerving. ‘Rachel Parkes?’ he asked, coming towards her.

  ‘That’s right. Why? Who are you? What’s going on? Has there been a break-in?’

  ‘No. Nothing like that.’ He nodded at her front door. ‘Perhaps we could talk inside.’

  Something about him and his companions gave her the creeps. The last thing she wanted was to be alone with them. ‘What’s wrong with out here?’ she asked.

  ‘Very well.’ He touched her shoulder to turn her away from the policeman, then adopted the falsely sombre expression of one about to deliver tragic news.

  Her heart plunged. Bren had done it, the thing she’d feared he’d do, too proud to be a burden. ‘My brother,’ she said.

  The man shook his head. ‘Your aunt. Penelope Martyn.’

  The relief was dizzying; she had to put a hand on the railing to steady herself. Then came a strange mix of grief and guilt and puzzlement. ‘That’s terrible,’ she said. ‘But why tell me? I’m not her next of ki
n.’

  ‘There was a fire,’ he said. ‘We have reason to believe it was set deliberately. Do you know a young man called Luke Hayward?’

  ‘Luke Hayward?’ She shook her head. ‘No. Why? Was it him?’

  ‘Let’s just say his name rang some rather loud bells. Let’s just say we’re very keen to talk to him. Which is where you come in.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’ll appreciate I can’t tell you too much. This is an active murder investigation. But have you checked your email recently?’

  The question took her by surprise. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Your aunt sent you a message just before she died. It may be nothing. It may be everything. If so …’ He spread his hands to indicate how self-evidently valuable it could prove, then beckoned to one of his companions, a man with gold earrings, glossy black hair and a trimmed black beard. He stepped forwards and opened up a laptop for her, like a waiter with a humidor.

  ‘You want me to check? Out here?’

  ‘I did suggest we go inside.’

  ‘Do you guys have ID?’

  The man shook his head. ‘We were off duty when the call came in. All hands to the pump.’

  ‘Leave me your details. I’ll forward you the email if I find it.’

  ‘This is a murder enquiry,’ he said. ‘Your aunt’s killer might be getting away right now.’

  Rachel sighed and turned to the policeman. ‘And you vouch for this, do you?’

  He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. ‘I don’t know the specifics, ma’am,’ he said. ‘But these gentlemen are with the security services, yes; and my orders certainly came down from on high.’

  It wasn’t the most fortunate choice of words. Rachel’s brother had been sentenced to life in a wheelchair because of orders handed down from on high. Anger cleared her mind and gave her courage. She turned back to blond-hair. ‘What were you doing inside my house?’ she asked.

  That double blink again. It gave him away. ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘You heard me. Why were you inside my house if it’s an email you’re after? Were you going through my things?’

  ‘This is a time-sensitive investigation,’ he said. ‘Your aunt’s killer is on the loose. Are you trying to help him?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Then just log in, will you?’

  ‘Like hell I will!’

  She span on her heel, squeezed between two parked cars, hurried back across the road, fishing out her car keys as she went. The man called out for her to stop but she ignored him. Something thumped into the small of her back and her whole body jolted. She fell into the road, her limbs twitching, her muscles drained and feeble, saliva leaking from her mouth to form a small pool on the sunlit black tarmac. Polished shoes arrived beside her face. The man crouched to grab her collar. He hauled her to her feet then pressed the nodes of his taser against her throat. Though still dazed, it occurred to Rachel how bizarre this all was, being assaulted so brazenly while a policeman just stood there and let them.

  The waiter held out his humidor once more. She didn’t want to submit, but she was scared and alone and she found herself complying. Her hands kept breaking into spasms so that she had to type with a single finger. She entered her username, was almost through her password when an engine roared in the street behind and a horn tooted loudly and she turned in bewilderment to see a red BMW hurtling with lethal speed towards their little group.

  TEN

  I

  Avram crossed the Jaffa Road and was instantly in a different world, the ultra-Orthodox black uniforms of Mea Shearim replaced by the garish shorts and T-shirts of Ben Yahuda. He bought a card at a kiosk, found a payphone, dialled one of the several numbers he’d taken the trouble to memorize. ‘It’s me,’ he said, when Danel picked up.

  ‘It’s happening, then,’ said Danel. Half statement, half question.

  ‘Bring everyone you can trust,’ Avram told him. ‘Netanya, tomorrow afternoon. Same place, same time.’

  ‘It is,’ said Danel. ‘It’s really happening.’

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’ He finished the call, walked briskly to another bank of phones. ‘I need the truck,’ he said, when Ephraim answered.

  ‘When?’

  ‘This afternoon. Tonight.’

  ‘I sold the last one,’ said Ephraim. ‘I’ve got a new one. It’s dark blue and a little bigger. But shabby. I was going to repaint it this week.’

  ‘Shabby is fine. As long as it runs.’

  ‘It runs beautifully. I’ll leave it for you now.’

  Avram moved on again for his third call. An abrasively cheerful young American woman answered. When he asked for Francis, she told him to hold, then went away singing a spiritual. Her voice faded and the minutes passed, so that Avram began to fear he’d been cut off. But then suddenly a man came on. ‘This is Francis. Who are you?’

  ‘You know who.’

  ‘Oh.’ Silence stretched out. ‘What do you want?’

  Avram lowered his voice, less from the fear of being overheard than from shame. ‘I need a cow,’ he said.

  ‘That’s why we’re here,’ said Francis.

  ‘I need her by seven o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  Francis laughed. ‘That’s not possible. You know it isn’t. Not perfect. Not three years old.’

  ‘You told me once that you didn’t believe the nine previous heifers could all have been perfect reds. You told me once that if we couldn’t breed even one, despite our huge herds, our varieties of cattle and our modern genetic techniques, then it defied credibility that the ancients had found even one truly perfect one, let alone nine. You did tell me that, didn’t you?’

  ‘And I believe it.’

  ‘I believe it too.’ He took a deep breath before diving headlong into the heresy. ‘I think that many things claimed as absolute in the Tanakh were in fact not absolute. I think too many of my brethren use literalism to show off how devout they are. That is not how one honours the Lord, praise His Name. That is the way one defies Him.’

  A beat of silence, then: ‘Tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Seven o’clock. As good as you’ve got. And at least three years old. We can honour that much. And her documentation will have to be convincing. My companions will want to check. Oh, and make it seem like she turned three at the precise hour of the earthquake.’

  ‘You’re asking too much. There isn’t time.’

  ‘And we’ll need the whole place to ourselves. You should be there, to answer questions. But not your volunteers. They’ll only say something stupid.’

  ‘You’re not listening. There isn’t time.’

  ‘No,’ said Avram. ‘You’re the one not listening. Call America if you need authority. Thaddeus will explain. But this has to happen. This is going to happen. Seven o’clock tomorrow morning. Be ready.’ And he put the phone down before Francis could argue further.

  II

  Rachel was too groggy to do anything but stand there dumbly as the BMW rushed towards her. But the men were quicker, leaping out of its way. It swerved at the last moment, pulled up with a screech beside her. The passenger door flew open and an athletic-looking, dark-headed young man grabbed her wrist, pulled her sideways onto his lap, her legs still dangling out. Blond-hair lunged for her, but the driver stamped on the accelerator and the BMW surged away, acceleration banging the door against her shins. They reached the junction with the main road and passing traffic forced the driver to hit his brakes. The door flew open again, allowing her to bring her feet fully inside so that the passenger could close the door. She looked around. The three men were chasing hard, fury in their eyes. They were almost upon them when a barely-existent gap opened in the traffic and the driver squirted out into it, forcing oncoming cars to brake sharply, leaving them honking like indignant geese.

  ‘Who the hell are you people?’ asked Rachel, still in the passenger’s lap. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Those men back there,’ said the passenger. ‘Was that a p
oliceman with them?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fuck!’ he said.

  The driver grimaced. ‘You reckon they got my licence?’

  ‘Don’t know, mate,’ said his passenger. ‘Probably. Can they trace it?’

  The driver shook his head. ‘Won’t be easy. The company rented it for me.’

  ‘Hey!’ Rachel had to shout for attention. ‘Who are you people? What’s going on?’

  The passenger grimaced, uncertain how to answer. He offered her his hand to shake, which was somewhat awkward with her still in his lap. ‘My name’s Luke Hayward,’ he said. ‘I knew your-’

  ‘Luke Hayward?’ she said. She pushed away from him in horror, spilling over onto the back seats. ‘You killed my aunt.’

  ‘No,’ he said, turning around to face her, holding his palms up to diminish any threat she might feel. ‘That’s not true. I swear it’s not true. It was those men back there. That man with the fair hair.’

  ‘They were police. You’re saying the police killed Aunt Penny?’

  ‘They weren’t police,’ he insisted. ‘They were with a policeman. It’s not the same thing.’

  ‘He was on duty. He said his orders came down from on high.’

  ‘They tasered you in the back,’ said Luke. ‘Are you really going to take the word of men who’d taser you in the back over the people who saved you from them?’

  She sought for a good comeback, couldn’t find one. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ she asked weakly.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Luke. ‘Not everything, anyway. But those men were at your aunt’s house earlier. They found out that she’d sent you an email she wasn’t supposed to send, and that fair-haired guy lost his rag. She was trying to get away from him when she fell down the attic stairs.’