Equinox

by Michael White

  They had all the necessary codes and procedures, of course, so they had been able to pass unmolested through the 'Three Stages of Attainment', each one leading inexorably to the next. But the wisdom of the Ancients, thought by most adepts to have been lost to history in the flames of Alexandria, could do nothing to protect them from the stifling heat along the three hundred yards of passageway that led from the college wine cellar to their destination: the secret labyrinth that stretched from a place deep below the Bodleian north to the foundations of the Sheldonian Theatre two score and ten yards distant. Their nostrils were clogged with the stench of old, rotten earth and damp, decaying dead things.

  Between the second test and the third, they had rested and drunk wine from a flask. The wine was good but too warm. After the briefest pause they had continued on their way. There was no time to linger tonight.

  After completing the third and final test. Landsdown handed the manuscript back to Newton who returned it to safety inside his shirt. This and the ruby sphere were valuable beyond imagining. Newton had toiled for almost eighteen months to translate the coded inscription he had found in the book by George Ripley, and he had reproduced the tiny drawing of the labyrinth so that it could be followed more easily. They would be needing these things again soon, but until then he wanted to keep the precious papers with the orb, next to his own flesh.

  Landsdown kept close. The torch was their only source of light. But then, suddenly, the passageway opened up. Newton had already passed alone through some of these tunnels in search of the sphere a few months earlier. In his mind he had also travelled the map while secluded in the privacy of his laboratory in Cambridge. The route was labelled 'The Path to Enlightenment', a title written in Aramaic, a language that had yielded its secrets to Newton after he had spent many years as a young man studying ancient tongues.

  As they emerged into a large circular space they could see in the faint light the way in which the ceiling 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 cloc
k,' 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.

  'This is good news, Mark.' Monroe looked up from the sheet of paper. 'But no match, so he's not been through the system, never worked for a government body, never been in the armed forces. You don't need me to remind you that we need anything else your team can get — anything.'

  There was a sudden knock on the door. Before Monroe could speak, a young officer stepped inside.

  'I'm sorry to interrupt, sir.' The officer ignored everyone but Monroe. 'I thought this was too important to wait.'

  'Spit it out, then, Greene. What can't wait?'

  'It's this, sir. I've been working through the databases for the past two days and. . well, I got permission from the university to access their systems. It wasn't easy, but… I think it was worth it.' He handed Monroe two pages of closely packed writing.

  'It's from the Psychology Department,' Greene added. 'A list of forty-seven female students who each attended what the department calls a Trial Day, apparently a set of psychological and physical tests, a week before the start of the academic year — late last September. All three of our dead girls are on the list.'

  As Monroe approached the exit, he passed the office of one of his best men, Inspector Joshua Rogers, who was standing in the doorway with a young woman.

  'Thank you for this, Miss Ingham,' Monroe heard Rogers say. 'We'll be in touch. One of my men will see you out. You have a lift, I take it?' The girl nodded and pushed open the double doors, heading for the stairs.

  Monroe raised his eyebrows.

  'That was Marianne Ingham,' Rogers explained. 'A student from St John's. She had this exquisite piece of artwork left in her pigeonhole at college.'

  Monroe grimaced when he saw the picture. 'Does she know who did it?'

  'She's not sure. Very jumpy — took her a week to come in to us with it. But she suspects someone in her year — a guy called Russell Cunningham.'

  'Good. Check him out and let me know immediately what you find. I'm going home.'

  Monroe's mobile rang as he was pulling into the driveway in front of his apartment.

  'Thought you would like to see this straight away,' Rogers said.

  Monroe switched off the ignition and lifted his phone from its cradle. A picture of a young man appeared on the screen. He was surprisingly handsome with longish curly blond hair, fine eyebrows, a delicate mouth.

  'He has form, sir.'

  The picture was replaced by a slowly scrolling page of writing.

  'Rich kid. Daddy owns a chain of hotels. He was expelled from Downside when he was sixteen. Haven't been able to get to the bottom of why. Family's done a good job persuading the school to keep things under wraps. The father probably helped his son into Oxford — the Cunningham Library at Magdalen was completed last year, six months before the boy came up. There's more, though. Two complaints of sexual harassment from female employees at one of the family hotels in London where Russell was doing a stint. First one when he was seventeen, and then again last year. No charges pressed, cases dropped. Girls no longer employees.'

  On screen there were precise dates, places, names.

  'Good work, Josh,' Monroe said. 'Is Candicott still there with that goon from the Press Office?'

  'No, they left just after you.'

  'Good. Well, look, keep this quiet for the moment, but meet me first thing tomorrow at the Psych Department on South Parks Road. Have a word with Greene if he's still there. Get him to bring you up to speed.'

  Chapter 28

  Oxford: 29 March, 9 a.m.

  As John Monroe turned along South Parks Road, he reflected how ugly the building that housed the Psychology Department was.

  He had been up since before dawn, sifting through the details of the case. On his home computer he had reviewed, for what must have been the hundredth time, the essentials of the case. Four murders, almost certainly the same killer, someone working alone, almost definitely a man. And what did they have? A scrap of DNA, no match; in fact, no match to anyone on file anywhere, it seemed. And then there were the ritualistic aspects, the coins, the removed organs. Laura Niven and Philip Bainbridge were convinced of an occult connection. And then there were the murders of 1851. There had to be a link.

  What did he know about those murders? Monroe had gone back through the files, had spent almost every spare minute for the past week going over all the details. Three girls and a male student had been murdered in the year of the Great Exhibition. An Irish labourer had taken the rap, but it was well known by crime historians that Professor Milliner had been intimately involved, that the man had connections with the occult, that he had been involved in some black-magic group, that the university authorities had closed ranks. Within a year of the murders, Milliner had taken a professorship in Turin and the Milliner family vanished completely from the Oxford scene. Now, with the recent murders, it had emerged that all the girls had volunteered for some tests at the University Psychology Department shortly before the start of the academic year.

  Monroe drove into the car park. Ahead of him he saw Rogers getting out of his car close to the main doors of the building. But as he spun the steering wheel to slip in next to the inspector's car he was startled by a Morgan sports car backing out of a parking bay way too fast. Monroe glared at the driver, but he seemed oblivious to anything but the road ahead. With a jolt, Monroe realised that he recognised the face.

  'I got his number,' Rogers said, as soon as Monroe joined him.

  'It was Cunningham, I'm sure of it.'

  Rogers looked startled. 'I'll run a check on the plate.'

  'You do that/ Monroe snapped and turned towards the doors.

  Outside term time the building was relatively quiet. The reception area consisted of a few chairs arranged around a table. Along one wall ran several rows of lockers and pigeonholes. Next to them there was a large noticeboard covered with posters for forthcoming gigs and sports programmes. Alongside these was
an old copy of The Daily Information — a news-sheet that went out to every part of the city, announcing entertainments and exhibitions and listing private sales. Monroe strode to the desk where a fat woman in a floral dress sat studying a computer screen. After she had ignored him for twenty seconds he rapped his knuckles hard on the counter. She glared up at him.

  'DCI Monroe, Thames Valley Police,' he said, flashing his ID. 'Here to see Dr Rankin — if it's not too much trouble.'

  The woman seemed singularly unimpressed. 'C4. Lift over there. Don't think he's here yet. .'

  'Yes, I am, Margaret.'

  Monroe turned to see a tall, bony man, a faint smile breaking across his face. 'Arthur Rankin,' he said, shaking Monroe's hand. He acknowledged Rogers with a nod.

  'You'll have to excuse Margaret,' Rankin said as he escorted them to the elevator. 'You get used to her after the first five years.' The lift had a strange, earthy smell and it took Monroe a moment or two to realise that the odour was coming from the professor.

  'I meant to be here earlier,' Rankin said as the elevator came to a halt on the fourth floor. 'Bloody car wouldn't start. So I walked across the park — quite pleasant, actually. Didn't rain, for a change.'

  Rankin's office was tiny, a paper-lined cocoon in white, brown and grey. The single mean window looked out onto a bleak concrete quad. There was not a glimpse of the famous dreaming spires. Rankin took off his coat and cleared some papers and books from the two chairs facing his desk. 'Please, sit down,' he said. 'Apologies for the mess -1 can never seem to get things straight in here.'

  'That's OK, professor. No need to stand on ceremony. We just have a few quick questions,' Monroe replied as he settled into a chair.

  'How may I help?'

  'We're interested in the psych tests conducted on a list of forty-seven female students in late September last year. What can you tell us about them?'

  For a moment Rankin looked puzzled. He had a high forehead and when he frowned, it looked like he was wearing a headband of worms. Then his expression brightened suddenly. 'Ah, you mean Julius Spenser's tests.'