The Genesis Inquiry

by Olly Jarvis

  ‘Don’t worry, you can do hot dogs. Sorry, wieners.’

  They bickered about the difference between tomatoes and tomatoes on the way up in the lift and then Lizzie buzzed them in.

  ‘You two look happy,’ she said, as they walked in.

  ‘You don’t,’ Ella observed, noticing the redness around Lizzie’s eyes. ‘Going somewhere?’

  Lizzie took off her coat. ‘No, I was but… I’m fine,’ she said, glancing over at Jay. ‘What’s the news?’

  ‘Desmond’s given us another forty-eight hours,’ said Ella.

  Broady shrugged. ‘And we only got that because your incredible mom figured out what Matthew had been working on.’

  Ella dumped the books on the sofa and they all joined Jay, who was sitting at the table in front of a laptop. ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,’ she said, directing the revelation at her daughter. ‘The Cambridge cell-site covered the Parker Library.’

  ‘Of course,’ Lizzie exclaimed. ‘The three libraries holding parts of the Chronicle. Why didn’t I think of that?’ She stared at Ella as if seeing her for the first time. ‘I’m really impressed, Mum.’

  Ella felt overwhelmed; her daughter’s approval meant everything. ‘Well, it’s something to go on, at least,’ Ella said, playing it down. ‘He seems to have been looking at all the ancient Christian manuscripts and then focussed in on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, I just can’t think why – and why it might have led to him disappearing.’

  ‘Jay’s got something, too,’ said Lizzie, remembering they’d never actually discussed it.

  ‘Really, that’s great,’ Ella replied, still riding the wave.

  Jay looked nervous. His apprehension over what he was about to divulge was obvious. ‘Matthew was ill.’

  ‘Ill?’ Ella repeated. ‘How do you know?’ She noticed he was avoiding eye-contact.

  ‘Hospital records.’

  ‘What, you worked out how to hack them?’ she asked, anger rising up. ‘That’s illegal.’

  ‘Strictly speaking, I already knew how.’ Jay’s eyes settled on Lizzie, as if searching for support.

  ‘From when his mum was sick,’ said Lizzie. ‘The doctors wouldn’t tell him anything because of his age.’

  Jay’s hands fiddled with the laptop screen. ‘So, I found out for myself.’

  Ella softened.

  ‘Let’s give the kid a break,’ said Broady.

  Jay looked relieved. His hands stopped moving. ‘I just thought I’d check; I couldn’t believe his name came up as a patient.’

  Ella was silent. Then she asked, ‘What was wrong with him?’

  ‘Brain tumour – terminal.’

  ‘That’s tough,’ said Broady.

  ‘The notes say he only had months to live, and that was back in November, so he may already be—’ Jay stopped.

  He didn’t need to spell it out.

  ‘Why would he leave Cambridge when he was being treated at the hospital?’ said Lizzie.

  ‘He was running out of time,’ said Ella. ‘And he knew it.’

  ‘But he doesn’t go home either?’ said Broady. ‘Doesn’t spend it with his brother, the only family he’s got?’

  ‘Something must have been more important,’ said Jay. His observation made Ella’s stomach tighten but there was something about what Broady had said that stuck in Ella’s mind. ‘What did you say about his family?’

  Broady sat down at the table and pushed a pile of books away from him. ‘About not going to see his brother?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ella tried to recall the phrase Cameron had used. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face. ‘There was something Cameron said…’ She rubbed her forehead as if the motion would produce the answer. ‘Little bro!’

  The others stared at her blankly.

  ‘That’s what he called Matthew – little bro.’

  ‘You think that’s the password?’ asked Jay, sitting up.

  ‘It’s got to be worth a try.’ said Ella, reaching for her handbag to retrieve the stick.

  ‘I agree,’ said Broady, ‘let’s give it a go.’

  She poked around in the bag, then stopped – the side pocket where she was sure she’d zipped the memory stick was empty. She patted her trouser pockets, front and back. Then searched the bag again. ‘It’s not here.’ She tipped the contents onto the table and went through each item. ‘I know I put it in this side pocket,’ she said, turning the bag inside out. She was fighting a rising tide of panic.

  The others joined the search.

  ‘Check your coat,’ said Broady.

  ‘I wouldn’t have put it there,’ she replied, checking anyway. ‘Someone must have stolen it.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Lizzie. ‘Maybe you’ve just lost it.’

  Ella began to pace the room. ‘No way.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ exclaimed Broady. He got up and faced Ella. ‘The security guy.’

  Ella looked at him. ‘At the British Library? No?’

  ‘Was he even security? He wasn’t behind the desk where they did the bag checks.’

  ‘He had a uniform on…’ Ella replied, trying to remember.

  ‘Or was it just a suit?’ asked Broady. He flopped onto one of the chairs. ‘I honestly can’t remember.’

  It suddenly seemed obvious. Ella was furious with herself. ‘Oh my god. He was nothing to do with the library.’

  Broady’s head dropped. ‘We got played.’

  Defeated, Ella sat on the chair next to him. ‘Who the hell are these people?’

  Broady didn’t answer.

  The room was silent.

  ‘Don’t freak,’ said Jay, his tone faltering, ‘but…’ He took a deep breath. ‘I made a copy.’

  ‘What?’ Ella got back up, her eyes boring into him. ‘When?’ She could see Jay’s Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulped.

  ‘When?’ she demanded again.

  ‘Yesterday,’ he replied tentatively.

  She stood over him. ‘Without telling me?’

  ‘I’m sorry, couldn’t help it.’ His eyes were pleading. ‘I back up everything.’

  ‘Did you know about this?’ she said, turning to Lizzie, who looked down. Ella turned to Jay and gave him an uncertain stare.

  Ella didn’t know what to think. ‘How can I trust you?’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Broady. ‘If he was planning to do something with it, he wouldn’t have told us.’

  Still feeling deceived, she snapped, ‘Where is it?’

  ‘On the laptop,’ he replied, waving a finger at the screen.

  ‘So,’ Broady said to Ella. ‘Are we good?’

  She was still thinking. ‘Pull another stunt like that,’ she said, ‘and you’re out.’

  ‘But luckily for you,’ observed Broady, ‘it was the right move.’

  Jay looked like a dog that had been told off by its master. ‘I’m sorry, Ella.’

  Unable to deny he had actually rescued the situation, she finally let it go, giving him a weary smile.

  Jay said, ‘So shall I try it?’ He looked to Ella for a response. ‘Little bro – no spaces?’

  She glanced at the others. No one had an objection.

  ‘Do it,’ she ordered.

  Jay typed it in.

  They waited. Ella held her breath.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ shouted Jay. ‘I’m in!’

  The excitement was electric.

  They all leaned in around the screen. Ella rested her hands on Jay’s shoulders to steady herself.

  ‘It’s a file,’ said Jay, ‘called Genesis.’ His finger hovered over the keys. ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Open.’

  The document came up on the screen.

  Ella stared at it, at a loss to understand.

  ‘Dots?’ said Lizzie.

  Jay scrolled down. There were sheets of dots, seemingly random, on each page.

  ‘You know what it looks like,’ Lizzie suggested. ‘A book where someone has deleted all the lines, leaving only the full stops.’

  ‘Or maybe it
’s some kind of code?’ said Jay. ‘Like Morse?’

  None of them could take their eyes off the screen. ‘It’s weird, I feel like I should know this pattern,’ said Lizzie.

  Ella kind of understood. There was something strangely familiar about it.

  ‘Maybe it’s a star map?’ said Broady. ‘A constellation.’

  Ella stood up and pulled herself away. ‘We’re all saying what it could mean to us, coming from our own perspectives. We need to take a step back, look at it objectively.’

  The others nodded.

  ‘And work out how it could be connected to our only other clue.’

  ‘The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle?’ said Lizzie. ‘It’s got to be about history, not science.’ She rubbed her chin. ‘Genesis, that’s so weird.’

  ‘What is?’ said Ella, unable to take her eyes off the screen.

  ‘Some climate change guy I met keeps talking about Genesis.’

  ‘Do you mean David Kline?’ asked Jay.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lizzie replied. ‘You know him?’

  ‘No, but he says some cool stuff. Supposed to have some mind-blowing central theory, apparently. You get to learn in stages if you support his organisation. It’s all about reaching enlightenment.’

  ‘Bet all the students love that,’ said Ella.

  ‘Sounds a bit like Scientology,’ said Broady.

  ‘I think it’s more fact-based than that,’ said Lizzie. ‘I’ve heard him speak.’

  ‘Thinking about it,’ said Jay. ‘He had a position at De Jure.’

  Ella stared at him.

  ‘Yeah,’ he continued. ‘The establishment didn’t like his politics so he got sacked. ‘It was in the local paper. Totally unfair, if you ask me.’

  ‘Too many coincidences,’ said Ella, putting on her coat. ‘Come on, we’re going to De Jure.’

  Chapter Fifty

  A light drizzle had all but cleared the streets. A few people in raincoats, their collars pulled up around their necks, scurried along under the streetlamps to their destinations. Ella marched, head down, across town to De Jure, oblivious to the weather.

  ‘I need to make sure I’m not going mad,’ she said when Broady asked what they were going to do.

  Broady muttered his usual complaint about her not being a team player as Ella strode on down the shadowy streets.

  ‘Evening,’ she called out to Bartlett as they passed his office. ‘Just checking something in Matthew’s room.’

  Bartlett looked up from his copy of The Sun and doffed his cap. ‘Brought the whole family?’ he said in a dry voice, as the others appeared at the window.

  Ella looked around and laughed, then realised they were one short. ‘Where’s Lizzie?’

  ‘Gone to see Greg,’ Jay replied.

  Ella remembered her puffy eyes. ‘Lover’s tiff?’

  ‘Something like that,’ Jay replied, without looking at her. ‘I’m sure she won’t be long.’

  She wondered why he’d felt the need to reassure her, but then dismissed it. ‘Mr Bartlett, is Master Desmond still here?’

  ‘Course he is,’ he replied, closing his paper.

  Ella sensed he didn’t have much affection for the man. ‘Can you do me a favour and show Detective Broady and Jay, my assistant, to Matthew’s rooms? I’ll catch you up when I’ve seen the Master.’

  ‘Right you are,’ he replied, pulling himself up off his chair and wheezing into action.

  Ella handed Broady the keys. ‘Two silver at the top and brown at the bottom.’

  Ella knocked on Desmond’s door and waited. She couldn’t stop thinking about Genesis and all its possible connotations.

  ‘Come.’

  The room was in semi-darkness apart from a desk light illuminating Desmond’s head and some papers on his desk. ‘Miss Blake?’ Caught without his jacket, he stood up and pulled it bashfully off the back of his chair, quickly dressing himself. ‘How can I help you?’

  Ella suddenly felt underdressed in her jeans. ‘What can you tell me about David Kline?’

  Desmond groaned. ‘Had the pleasure, have you?’ He walked over to the door and switched on the main light.

  ‘No, his name cropped up, that’s all. Another academic from De Jure?’

  ‘The bane of my life,’ said Desmond wistfully. ‘My own fault, we put his brilliance before everything else. He’s still coming into Cambridge you know, to recruit undergraduates for whatever it is he does. We’re not happy about it, but what can we do? They’re all adults.’

  The sound of the weather outside drew them to the window. They stood side by side watching the rain batter the glass.

  Ella broke the silence. ‘I heard you had to let him go a couple of years ago?’

  The mention of this made his face contort. ‘We couldn’t have someone with his profile getting involved in pitched battles at police cordons.’ He put his chin into his chest. ‘No, that just wouldn’t do.’ He faced Ella now. ‘God knows I’m the first to acknowledge the need to put climate change higher up on the agenda. And I know how crucial the issue is to young people, particularly those at De Jure, but…’ His voice trailed off.

  ‘But you didn’t approve of his methods?’

  ‘How could we?’ He went over to his desk and rummaged around in a drawer, pulling out a few sheets. He came back to the window and presented them to Ella. ‘A petition signed by half of our students demanding his reinstatement.’

  She perused the list of names and signatures. She could see this was still very much an open wound for Desmond.

  ‘You see, the undergraduates loved him. He’s handsome, charismatic – very different from Matthew, polar opposites.’

  She handed back the petition. ‘Did they know each other?’

  He dropped the sheet of paper on the desk. ‘Oh yes, they’ve known each other for years. They’re the same age, competing child prodigies, I suppose you could say. They collaborated once I think, but sadly, never published what they were working on.’

  ‘Were they friends?’ She wondered why she hadn’t been told any of this before.

  ‘God no, chalk and cheese. Rivals.’ Desmond reflected. ‘Both great polymaths but Matthew was always a step ahead.’

  ‘Was Kline spoken to when Matthew disappeared?’

  ‘I assume so,’ he replied. ‘I told McDonald about him. You don’t think…?’

  Ella didn’t reply. She was too busy trying to work out why McDonald had never given her this lead. ‘You’d better email me everything you’ve got on Kline.’

  Desmond gave her an anxious nod.

  ‘I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need it.’

  Ella found Broady working his way along the bookshelves in Matthew’s room calling out obscure titles.

  Jay was perched on a pile of books with his laptop open. ‘I’ve got some software I’m running, to try and work out if there’s some kind a pattern here.’

  Ella stood over him, staring at the dots on the screen. ‘Genesis. Why Genesis?’

  Broady stopped what he was doing and put his hands on his hips. ‘What are we actually looking for?’

  Ella began pacing, then suddenly stopped. ‘It’s all about joining the dots…’ Her mind was racing.

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ said Broady.

  ‘Something Desmond said…’ She stood in the middle of the room, taking in her surroundings. Her expression changed. She put a hand on her head then and fixed the others with an intense stare. Then she went over to Jay and checked the dots on the screen, then looked around the room. ‘Remind you of anything?’ she asked.

  Broady came over and joined Jay in studying the pattern, then turned to look at the walls.

  ‘Look,’ she said, sweeping an arm around the room. ‘The wallpaper?’

  Their eyes followed her hand. The pattern was of swirling lines and arcs, connecting dots, from floor to ceiling. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is Genesis.’

  The position of the dots on the wall matched the pattern on the screen.

  Broady w
as the first to speak, ‘Why have it on the walls?’ He went over and ran a finger over the pattern. ‘Look at the seam – it’s actual wallpaper.’

  ‘So that he could look at it all day,’ said Jay, unable to take his eyes off the curves. ‘Without anyone suspecting this was what he was working on.’

  ‘Ingenious,’ said Ella. She felt a shiver down her spine.

  Broady moved his finger along one of the lines. ‘What the hell does it mean?’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Lizzie fought her way through the bar, jam-packed with drinkers. Greg was sitting on the end of one of the tables with two glasses of Sancerre at the ready.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked above the din.

  She gave nothing away.

  ‘What was so urgent?’ He handed her a glass as she sat down.

  She noticed his eyes anxiously searching her face for clues. She took a sip and gathered herself. She’d decided not to mess about. ‘Greg,’ she asked, praying Jay was wrong. ‘Are you really at Wolfson?’

  His body stiffened. ‘Where’s this come from? Jay, I bet?’

  ‘Are you really a student?’ she asked more forcefully.

  ‘What?’ he replied with a laugh that sounded forced.

  ‘I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me the truth.’ She looked into his eyes, more with sorrow, than anger.

  He opened his mouth as if about to protest, then his eyebrows dropped, his face falling out of character. ‘Not in here.’ He scanned the room, full of customers, then stood up. ‘Come on.’

  Her heart sank. She followed him outside and they found shelter under the old coachmen’s entrance. She glanced over at a couple of students further down the lane under an umbrella, smoking a spliff and giggling. The sickly-sweet smell of marijuana wafted over.

  Moving closer, Greg said, ‘There’s a lot you don’t know.’

  Water streamed down off the roof, making it hard to hear what he was saying. Unsure she’d heard right, Lizzie replied, ‘About you?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, gently running a finger down her cheek. ‘I’ve been trying to protect you.’

  She swatted his hand away. ‘In other words, you lied?’