Sleepwalker (19 page)

The bearded librarian frowned. It was all too complicated, he seemed to be thinking. Americans with little white cards. The world was cluttered with them.

Another librarian, a woman, smiled up at Davis. “I saw you on television. It was on BBC Two. I begin to remember—it was a few years ago. I seem to remember you from—was it ‘Open University'?”

“That's right,” said Davis. “My lecture on the nasal index.”

“Nasal index! And you want to see our manuscripts?”

“Just briefly.”

Davis climbed the ladder, located the volume, and leaped down. Gentle with the ancient pages, but as quickly as he could, he found the place he wanted and tilted the pages to get the best light.

The ancient script was nearly invisible in places. He searched back in the chronicle, discovering what had happened to previous kings, how they had died, and most important, how they had been buried. Plainly, being a king was a temporary position in York's eighth century. There had been plots and counterplots, and the kings had not been, in the best of times, particularly powerful.

The deaths of ancient kings, and ancient lords. “In the ninth month of his reign the ring-giver, lord of Bodeton and the Oak Ford, and lord of the Kingdom north of the Humber, died by the grace of God almighty, and was buried with his sword.”

“In that month a great water rose from the west and fell upon the lands, with a great foulness, and many lords fell by the will of God almighty, and were buried with their swords.”

So many people, faded to tea-pale smudges on a sheepskin page.

He called Irene from the Phonecard booth near the Lendal Bridge.

“Poor Alf,” said Irene. “The doctor looked like such a determined man. No doubt he is very unhappy.”

Everyone was unhappy, said Davis. “I suppose Mr. Langton is the most upset of all. He has forbidden me to do any more work on the dig, or to have anything to do with investigating what has been happening.”

“But you will not stop working, will you?”

The little window in the telephone showed that his Phonecard credits were nearly used up.

He wished she were here, this moment. He had an instant sense of her smile, and her body, her perfect black hair, the curve of her under him, her breath at his ear.

“You will not give up, Davis, because you know that you are right.”

There was a note taped to the door of his flat. “Call Mr. Langton.”

Davis used the coin phone near the abbey walls. There was only a recorded message at the office, Mrs. Webster telling Davis what to do at the sound of the tone. Davis hung up, and fed the telephone twenty pence. This time Mrs. Langton answered at the Langton residence.

“A terrible thing, Mr. Lowry. I don't even want to say.”

Worse, Davis wanted to ask, than what had already happened that day?

Mr. Langton would pick him up. He should stay where he was, and wait not five minutes.

Langton drove quickly, which, Davis imagined, was not like him. The city was entirely dark now, and the headlights of Langton's Ford did not seem to succeed against the black.

“Not a pretty business,” was all Langton would say.

Davis had to nearly beg for information.

“Two matters, really,” said Langton.

Langton swerved to miss a man on a bicycle.

“Should I try to guess?”

“You couldn't. The first one is, perhaps, fairly simple. Did Mandy mention going off anywhere? Down to London, perhaps, with Irene?”

“No, not at all.”

“Well, she's gone missing, then. She was supposed to lecture at Saint Andrews tonight on Norse artifacts uncovered at the dig. She's a charming speaker, and enjoys it, and she can use the money.”

“Sick, perhaps. Or maybe she forgot.”

“Mmmm,” doubtfully. “Perhaps.”

There was a long silence. They were well out of York now, heading southwest, as nearly as Davis could tell.

“Bishopthorpe,” said Langton in answer to Davis's question. “Closer to Acaster Malbis, actually.”

“Could you, maybe, give me just a hint as to what is happening?”

Langton sighed, and as frustrated as Davis felt, he decided not to push the man.

“Not a pretty business,” said Langton after driving silently for a moment. “When was the last time you saw Jane Hull?”

Davis didn't know. He had thought—perhaps Mandy had told him—that she was quitting and leaving for London.

“Yes, I knew that. We had a word. She thought this project might not be the best thing for her career. Can't imagine anyone thinking that, can you?” he added, a bit of dry humor that Davis appreciated, even as it surprised him.

“This will certainly be the pinnacle of my résumé, for as long as I live,” said Davis.

Langton drove, every furlong that they traveled just that much closer to exactly the sort of thing Langton most wanted to avoid. He found himself resenting Higg for spending all this time completely unconscious. Langton was capable, but he was not intended for the slings and arrows of fortune quite this outrageous.

“I am beginning to become rather familiar with the police,” said Langton at last. “After years of television, I'm afraid I am a little disappointed.”

Davis began to guess what had happened. He could not, naturally, imagine the details. But he, too, wished the car would blow a tire, or that the calendar could shift and find them all just a few weeks before all this—anything to delay what was about to happen.

Davis did not bother to ask any more questions. He didn't want to know.

Lights swung on the black water. Blue police lights flashed, and electric torches illuminated reeds, then water, then road as their bearers turned their attention from one place to another.

“We had her and then we lost her,” said a policeman.

“How, exactly,” asked Mr. Langton, “did you manage that?”

Bubbles burst on the surface of the river.

“Our divers brought up a handbag. Here it is. Here's a library ticket with her name on it.”

“Yes, but you haven't a body?”

“We thought we did.”

Langton turned to Davis and, although the two men could not see each other's features, there was a moment of shared exasperation.

“It's dark, you see, and she's hard to get a hold of. I do want to apologize. We should have her any moment now.”

“Lovely,” muttered Langton.

Langton and Davis walked to the edge of the darkness. A van with a loud generator backed to the edge of the river, and the scene was illuminated with nearly blinding blue light. Policemen parted bushes, and the frogmen rose, spitting water, and clearing mouthpieces. “Nowt yet,” said one. The river water looked green in the unnatural light.

Langton put his hands into his pockets. “They think,” he said, “they have Jane's body.”

23

The lights glittered on the water, and the frogmen rose and adjusted their face masks. Their black wet suits were smeared with light, and the mouthpieces to their aqualungs were bright yellow. They consulted with each other, and sank again, strewing the water and white stars.

The river was full with early spring runoff. Eddies and countereddies churned the surface. At times the river looked like the muscles of a massive, running beast.

It was not a warm night. “Fresh,” one young policeman said to another. “It is that,” the other said.

Langton fumed. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “I've never seen anything to equal this. They expect us to watch them make a total cock-up of whatever it is they think they're doing. ‘We'll need you,' they said, ‘to verify the identity of the body.' So we have to stand here and watch this.”

The policemen grew from apologetic to taciturn to vaguely hostile.

“Shouldn't be long now,” one would say.

“We'll have it up in no time at all now,” said another.

And another, “You can't hurry this sort of thing.”

And at last, “It's foolish to try to hurry the men along. No need to worry. We'll have questions for you when we're done.”

This last was threatening somehow. “I believe,” said Langton at last, “that we may as well leave. It's after midnight.”

None of the police encouraged them to stay.

Langton drove. An owl hovered before them in the headlights, and then twisted and was gone.

“Maybe they won't find her,” said Davis.

“Some children saw a body. The police fished out a handbag, and one of the divers claimed to have seen her down in the muck. Or some sort of body. The police are not terribly impressive, are they?”

“Not terribly.”

“I want the keys,” said Langton, his voice suddenly hard.

“Keys?”

“Don't pretend to be deaf. The keys to the laboratory. I want them.”

“I have them here in my pocket.”

“That's very convenient, then.”

“Are you planning to do some research tonight?”

“I'll take them now, if you please.”

“I can't help wondering why you want them.”

“To prevent you from going there. I'll take them now.”

“Absolutely not. I have property of my own in that lab, notebooks and software, and I have a right to have access to things that belong to me.”

“This is going to be unpleasant. I can prevent you from entering that lab, can't I? By force of law?”

“Let's make it pleasant. I'll use the key tonight, remove all my personal possessions, and only my own possessions, and give you the keys the first thing tomorrow.”

Besides, thought Davis, the work I have to do there will take only an hour or two.

“I find it difficult to trust you. I know you plan some sort of heroic effort. I have no idea what. I can see it in the way you set your jaw. I forbid any such attempts to be brilliant, Davis. The most brilliant man I know is near death in hospital. Brilliance doesn't impress me.”

“I'll make a serious effort not to be brilliant.”

“I don't want to see you strapped into a hospital bed,” said Langton, softening his voice.

“I'll give you the keys first thing tomorrow.”

“This may be very foolish.”

“What can possibly happen?”

“I don't know what's been happening all along, do I? All I know is that one man is dead, and possibly a woman, and the first thing I'll have to do when I reach home is ring the duty nurse to see if William is still alive. This has all made me a little less keen on scientific research.”

Langton dropped Davis off at the lab, and did not bother warning him or urging him to display common sense. He turned away, and jerked the Ford into the street, as though to distance himself at once from Davis's stubborn foolishness.

Davis, alone now, his feeling of mild triumph over Langton fading, took the keys from his pocket. Langton was right, in a conservative, administrative way. And Langton wasn't such a worthless man. He had displayed no small amount of pluck during this long day.

Dr. Higg, lying comatose, with three or four heartbeats per minute, like a man freezing to death. Alf, exploding with the blackness that had eaten his nerves.

Necrotizing.

They had her library ticket.

What had Alf seen at the hospital window?

Irene's faith in him pulled him across the stepping stones. He unlocked doors, and climbed down stairs, and turned on the lights in the lab. Now that he was here he did not want to stay.

It had always been too cold. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The finds trays were all put away, and drawers marked
ARTEFACTS
—the spelling in use here—were shut and locked, with a computer printout cataloging each find Irene had processed so far.

Davis gathered his notebooks. They were a small pile, and would be easy to carry. He avoided going into the Skeldergate Man's room until he could not put it off any longer. Even then he made excuses. He had no real reason to open the door to the room. He didn't expect to find anything there.

But these days, he told himself, we don't know what, exactly, to expect. An archaeologist never does. It's best to look into the room, just to make sure.

Make sure of what?

He switched on the light, and the light fluttered, half-on, half-off. There was still a trace of fingerprint powder on the door handle, and on the edge of the bare table. It was more cold than usual in here. His breath was pale at his lips. His ungloved fingers burned with the cold.

He backed out of the room. He was glad to lock it.

Davis switched on the computer. After loading DOS, he loaded the Datamaster system, knowing that he was about to stretch the limits of the duties such software was intended to perform. He searched under the keyword
ROYAL
and, not to his surprise, came up with nothing. He searched for
RELIGIOUS
, and coaxed the computer into a list of possible religious objects classified from the Skeldergate site. Some possible amulets, a golden limb which someone had given to a saint in thanks for restoring strength to an arm, and a small Norman cross. Interesting finds, each deserving attention, but not what he needed tonight.

What he needed, what they all needed, was knowledge. How to make everything peaceful again. How to put the badness to rest. It was knowledge that would do it, and knowledge came like this, turning the pages of an ancient volume, blinking at the screen of a computer, quietly, hunting without moving.

BURIAL
came up with too many confusing finds,
DEATH
came up blank.

He punched in the keyword
SWORD
and got a cluttered list. He punched
CEREMONIAL SWORD
, and the computer listed only one such weapon, the fine sword hilt Dr. Higg had displayed in London.

Perfect.

There was a sound.

A dragging hiss. Like a plastic sheet tugged across the floor. Like a leather body dragging itself. Pulling itself step by step, down the stairs.