Alchemist (31 page)

Daniel understood, and beamed; a warmth, deeper than anything he had ever felt in his life, flooded through him at this sudden, intense communion with a total stranger. He touched his chest and responded: ‘
Malkuth
.'

The man touched his right shoulder. ‘
Ve-Geburah
.'

Daniel touched his left shoulder. ‘
Ve-Geburah
.'

The man clasped his hands in front of him. ‘
Le-olam
.' His eyes glazed as if he were in a trance. ‘
Eko, Eko, Azarak
.'

‘
Eko, Eko, Zomelak
,' David responded.

‘
Eko, Eko, Cernunnos
.'

‘
Eko, Eko, Aradia
,' Daniel said.

The man took a deep breath then looked hard at Daniel. ‘You have no adept; but you want to learn? You want to develop? Is that why you're here? You've come in quest of knowledge?'

‘Yes.'

‘How badly do you want it, Daniel?'

Daniel faced his questioner with a confidence he did not know he possessed. ‘I want it very badly.'

‘You want to develop more than anything in all the world?'

Daniel thought, for a brief moment, about God. But there was something about this man that made him feel instinctively safe. As if he had met, for the first time in his life, someone who might understand his interest in the arcane, someone with whom he could discuss it with no fear of it getting back to his mother, someone he could trust.

He needed that badly. There were many times in the past few years when he had sat in church and thought back to the night his father had died. Sometimes he really believed he had killed him, and he was glad. Other times, he became scared of what might happen to him. God was everywhere; they worshipped God in school, in Sunday school, on the wireless, in the newspapers. It seemed to him that everyone else in the entire world, except himself, loved God. Maybe his mother was right, and maybe his father had been right. Perhaps he was a sinner and would be condemned to eternal damnation.

He had tried to bring up the subject of the occult and of alternatives to God with the vicar, but the vicar had looked shocked and merely spouted the same kind of biblical quotations as his mother. But here, now, in this shop with this strange-looking man, he experienced a deep sense of kinship. He had no fear and no guilt. He felt only a profound sense of having come
home
.

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘I do want to develop more than anything in the world.'

‘You would like to join a coven, wouldn't you, Daniel?'

He nodded.

‘Good,' the man said. Then he smiled. ‘I'm sure I can help you there. More than you know. Give me your hand.'

Tentatively, Daniel proffered his right hand. The man took
it, turned it over and studied the palm for some moments, then he closed his own fingers tightly into it. He squeezed hard and Daniel winced, stifling a cry of pain. Then the man released his grip and gave him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.

Daniel stared at his palm in shock. All five of the man's nails had made tiny, half-moon incisions, through which blood was beginning to rise. But he felt no anger, only overwhelming gratitude; it was as though, by this act, the man had signalled he was accepting him.

‘You have very good blood, Daniel,' the man said. ‘It flows fast and the colour is rich.' He smiled again. ‘Do I make you nervous? Do not be afraid. Only those who have God by their side need be afraid.'

‘I'm not afraid.'

The man turned, pulled
The Magus
off the shelf and laid it on the counter, then gestured Daniel to have a look at it.

Daniel approached the thick, green tome, holding his breath in awe. Then he solemnly raised the cover and turned it over. On the inside was written, in pencil, the price. ‘£3.10s.'

A fortune, Daniel thought. His pocket money was sixpence a week. He did a quick calculation. At twenty shillings to a pound, three pounds and ten shillings was seventy shillings. He would have to save for one hundred and forty weeks – nearly three years.

‘Would you like to buy the book? It's an original – 1801. Very rare; if it was in better condition I would have to charge much more for it.'

‘I'd like it very much, but I can't afford it at the moment. I only have seven shillings and four pence saved up. My father left me a little money but I can't have that for another six years – when I'm twenty-one,' he said wistfully, and turned to the index, hurrying in case the man took the book away again.
Celestial Influences, The Occult Properties of Metals, Herbs and Stones. Alchymy, or Hermetic Philosophy. Talismanic Magic. Cabalistical Magic. Conjuration of Spirits
. His heart began beating faster with excitement. It was all here, all in this book that he had read so much about.

‘Take it.'

‘I beg your pardon?'

‘I can see how much you love it. How much you need it. Take it. Make good use of it. Go on, it's a gift!'

Daniel looked at him, confused. ‘But I – I must give you something.'

‘You will, Daniel,' the man said with a smile. ‘You will.'

London
.
Monday 14 November
,
1994

‘You'd had no argument with Mr Seals, then?'

Detective Constable Brine, who was seated on the far side of Monty's desk, looked about twelve years old, she thought. He had a long thin neck on which his head was set too far forward, ginger hair cut in the style of a lavatory brush, and he wore a cheap suit that was too big for him, as if he was waiting to grow into it. His manner was as aggressive as his appearance; he reminded her of an ostrich which had once tried to peck her through the mesh in Central Park Zoo.

It was half past twelve; she had arrived in the office shortly after nine to find that a mountain of calls and correspondence had built up during her absence. She could do without this interrogation right now.

But Brine continued. ‘I understand Mr Seals had a bit of a reputation for – how shall we put it? – rubbing people up the wrong way?'

‘I always found him very helpful,' Monty snapped back.

‘Well, you have to appreciate it seems odd – the pair of you in the laboratory alone, before dawn; then he has an
accident
and dies.'

She drew a sharp breath, the implied accusation both wounding and angering her. ‘I suggest you check my statement. You'll realize then that the accident had already happened before I arrived. In my opinion you are overaggressive and insensitive. I am as concerned as you are to find out the truth, but you're not going to do it this way, OK?'

D. C. Brine looked at her with the insolence of a scolded but unrepentant child, then stood up stiffly. ‘I have everything I need for the moment, thank you. Miss Bannerman.'

As he left she contrasted him with the urbane Detective Superintendent Levine of last week, who had at least been courteous. What was this young rookie's game? Levine had told her unequivocally that Seals had been drunk. Why was this man Brine trying to suggest she'd been involved? Nobody seriously considered she might have murdered Seals, did they?

Then she wondered, darkly, if that was the reason an officer as senior as Levine had come to see her? And were they now playing the old one-two; hard cops, soft cops? The rookie deliberately riling her, trying to make her lose her temper and say something on which they could catch her out? She was not sorry when the phone rang, interrupting her thoughts, and she lifted the receiver.

‘It's a Mr Best for you. Regarding the symposium Dr Bannerman's attending in Washington next month, and I'm not getting any answer from your father's phone.'

The woman's voice was becoming familiar to Monty; it was one of half a dozen polite, distant voices that spoke to her down the line from the reception pool. She had never met any of them in person and knew, almost certainly, she never would. It was all part of the Bendix Schere philosophy of keeping people apart.
Divide and rule
. It was the principle on which, Monty had once read, Hitler had built up Nazi Germany.

She took the call. The organizer of the symposium – on the morality of patenting genes – was in London for a couple of days. He wondered if there was any chance of meeting up with Dr Bannerman, and also needed to know urgently whether he would like to attend a dinner for delegates, hosted by President Clinton. Monty knew her father was contemptuous of Clinton, as he was of most politicians, and asked Mr Best to let her ring back after she'd asked.

She went into the corridor and peered through the internal window into her father's chaotic office next door. No luck. So she tried his main laboratory, but could see no sign of her father amongst the white coats working there.

She was just wondering whether to go back to her office and
beep his pager when she saw a young female microbiologist walking up the corridor. Monty asked if she had seen her father anywhere and was told he was in Lab 6.

Monty hurried down to Lab 6 with a slight knot in her throat. That was where Jake Seals had died. She had gone there first thing that morning and had had a quick scout round for any sign of the Maternox tablets he'd probably had on him, but without success. It had given her the creeps being in there. She stopped outside the door and could see her father through the porthole, slotting test tubes into the rack of a water bath.

Everything looked calm in the lab. Except as she entered she saw again the blotches of dark blisters on the white work surface, and on the speckled grey floor tiles beneath the shower where Jake Seals had lain. She had to steel herself against the wave of revulsion that rose inside her.

There was an atmosphere of almost studied normality, as if everyone was concentrating more fully on their work than ever, in order to try to blot out the horror of what had happened. She walked quietly between the benches up to her father, and watched his face. As a child she used to love being with him whilst he worked. There was a serenity in his expression when he was concentrating that always made her feel very secure; it was as though, as long as he was a part of science, the world would always be all right.

He looked less robust than usual today, drawn and slightly despondent, and she knew how badly he must be taking Seals' death.

He always felt a deep sense of responsibility for his colleagues, and as he had driven her up to London that morning she was aware through words unspoken that he did not totally believe her reason for being in the lab so early on the fatal day.

He switched on the agitator and the rack of test tubes began to vibrate. Then he turned to acknowledge her.

‘I've just had the organizer of the Washington symposium on the line – Mr Best. He's in London and would like to meet up with you for an hour if you have time.'

‘If he came over here I could meet him for a quick lunch.'

‘He already has a lunch meeting.'

Bannerman shook his head. ‘Can't otherwise.'

‘I'll tell him it's not possible. Now, hear this … He also has an invitation for you from the White House – to attend a dinner hosted by President Clinton during the symposium.'

The scientist peered closely at the contents of the vibrating test tubes. ‘I don't want to meet that shyster.'

‘I think you should go, Daddy.'

‘What the hell for?'

‘Because if you don't, people will think you haven't been invited.'

He smiled at her. ‘I suppose you've already accepted for me?'

‘No – but I intend to.'

He smiled again. ‘So I don't have much say in the matter – as usual?'

‘Not a lot!'

‘Are you invited as well?'

‘I'm not sure if I'm coming with you yet – I was going to see how the workload went here.'

‘Tell them I want you to come to the dinner too.'

‘I'll try.'

He looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘Got any lunch plans today?'

‘No.'

‘Want to come to the canteen with me, about one?'

‘Yes, fine,' she said.

He frowned, suddenly. ‘Darling – can you be a bit more careful when you take things out of my filing cabinets. I've just wasted half an hour trying to find some of my notes on the psoriasis genes – you'd put them back in the wrong place.'

Monty shook her head. ‘I haven't touched your psoriasis files.'

‘I don't mean today – last week, perhaps, before the accident?'

‘Not guilty. They probably got muddled during the move.'

He looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘Yes, I suppose that's what must have happened. Or maybe I misplaced them myself.' He leaned forward and squinted at the test tubes again. ‘Getting older and more confused every
day,' he mumbled. ‘Promise you'll pull the plug when I've gone completely gaga?'

She smiled, cheered by his irrepressible spirit. ‘You've been gaga all my life. How will I know if you've got any worse?'

‘Oh, you'll be able to tell – it'll be when I start listening to advice.'

Conor Molloy's office door opened and he could just see Charley Rowley's head, and his daffodil-yellow tie, over the piles of documents that were stacked on his own desk and rising in precarious columns from the floor.

‘Morning, Captain America. Good weekend?' Rowley was laden with another bundle of documents and searched the remaining floor space for somewhere to put them.

‘OK – I guess. I kind of worked most of it.' Conor shifted a couple of files sideways. ‘How about yourself?'

‘Ancestor worship. Had to go and see the aged p's.'

‘P's?'

‘Parents. Thirty-second wedding anniversary, poor old things.' Then he grinned. ‘I'm thirty-two – always been a touchy subject.'

Conor grinned too.

‘Hey, can't spend all your time working – makes Jack a dull boy. When are you moving into your flat?'