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Duke Humfrey’s Library
Bodleian Library
Broad Street
Oxford OX1
England
The United Kingdom
Ava’s shoes echoed on the stone floor of the ancient university’s medieval proscholium.
Its high gothic ceiling looked down over a bare corridor that would not have been out of place in one of the great medieval monasteries.
The grand antechamber was empty, except for a central reception point and, at each end, a small oval wooden desk guarding access to the library’s two main staircase towers.
Ava picked up the passes left for her at reception, swiped them at the glass swing barrier by the southern staircase, and ran up the medieval tower with Ferguson close behind her.
Passing the low doorway to the first floor reading rooms, she carried on up the narrow stairs with their small medieval windows and gothic wall tracery. Arriving at the second floor, she peeled off through a set of blue and gold metal doors under an impressive Tudor stone doorway, and into Duke Humfrey’s Library.
She had always thought it was one of the most striking rooms in England.
It was H-shaped, and they entered at the long eastern wing’s southern tip. At the same time, a student in a dark green hoodie disappeared into the stairway at the wing’s far northern end.
Light streamed in from a large mullioned gothic window, casting a mellow glow all around the warm dark polished wood covering the floors, walls, and ceiling. Centuries-old bookcases filled every inch of wall space, and arched wooden colonnades supported elegant first-floor galleries with ornamental balustrades.
Directly ahead, the bookcases were filled with ancient leather-bound books in a variety of shades, from ochre to oxblood. Most had no titles, save for occasional Latin or Greek abbreviations inked onto the spines in an ancient spidery hand.
In an area left unchanged since medieval times, one section of antique books had small metal plates bolted into their covers, with heavy handmade chains linking them to bars running the length of the shelves.
The silence was total.
Looking about, her priority now was to find the librarian she had spoken to on the phone.
She passed another security desk and walked quickly into the middle section of the library—a wide corridor linking the two end wings.
The atmosphere was different here. The ceiling’s wood-panelled coffers were filled with painted crests of the university’s arms, and the whole roof structure was supported by beams decorated in pale swirling floral patterns.
She walked between the rows of freestanding antique bookcases—each sheltering gnarled desks where scholars had sat for centuries, poring over dusty volumes under the watchful eyes of austere figures looking down from old paintings.
This was the oldest section of the great library.
To her right, behind an aged wooden grille, was the reserve area—a screened-off section of cubicles hidden behind the panelling, from where the librarians issued materials ordered from the vast underground book stacks.
A lady in a baggy grey jumper and glasses picked up a sheaf of loose folios from the reserve desk, and headed back into the library, leaving Ava a clear view of a thin-faced man in a blue-checked lumberjack shirt, who was doing up the brass and leather buckles on a large wooden-backed book.
“Dr Hendey?” she asked, introducing herself. “Dr Curzon. We spoke earlier this morning.”
He nodded an acknowledgement, putting down the book and walking towards her. “I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what’s going on. How did you know someone would come this morning to consult—”
But what he was saying was lost, as a piercing shriek from the west wing of the library shattered the scholarly hush.
Irritation crossed his face for a split second, before giving way to alarm as he realized something serious had happened.
Ferguson moved first, followed by Ava and the librarian. They ran down the corridor to the west end of the library, and were greeted by the sight of the middle-aged woman in the baggy grey jumper standing up behind the nearest of the long readers’ tables. Her hands were clasped over her mouth in horror.
Ava looked in the direction the woman was staring, her face frozen.
Oh God!
She felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat.
Not again.
At the far end of the wing, in the dimly lit north-eastern corner, between the columns of the arcade, an elderly man in a cream linen jacket was hanging by the neck from the upper gallery.
A rope had been secured around one of the sturdy balusters supporting the first-floor railing, and he hung from it by a noose, which only partially obscured his white clerical collar. A pile of large books lay undisturbed a few inches under where his feet were gently swinging.
From the angle of his neck and the unnatural position of his body, it was clear he was very dead.
There was no one else in the west wing of the library except for the woman, and Ava could immediately see from the curling ancient music folios in front of her that she had not been the one consulting
The Sword of Moses
.
Ava looked back at the dead priest, and then to the librarian. “Was it him, reading the manuscript?”
The librarian nodded dumbly, his face a mask of horrified incomprehension at what had happened in his library
She could feel an intense anger rising in her throat.
Everywhere Malchus went, he left a trail of death.
“Where had he been sitting?”
The stunned librarian nodded numbly towards an empty seat at one of the long wide tables with the library’s traditional oak book rests and tall brass lamps.
Ava strode over to it, and looked down at the desk where the priest had been working.
The printout of the British Library’s microfiched codex of
The Sword of Moses
was open, resting on a pile of large green triangular foam wedges. The papers were weighted down with a long string of small cylindrical lead weights sewn into a cream-coloured snake of cotton.
She looked at the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic text, and began translating it to herself:
If anyone wishes to use this Sword, which fulfills every wish and reveals every secret, and performs every miracle, marvel, and amazing thing, then speak to Me in the following manner, read this to Me, and conjure in the following way, and I will instantly be called upon and be well disposed towards you, and I will give you authority over this Sword, by which to fulfil all your desires.
She shuddered, before moving her gaze to the old priest’s papers.
He had been taking notes in a large unruled notebook with a black cloth binding. No ink was allowed in the old library, so he had been writing with a sharp pencil in a small, clear, and precise hand.
On the first page he had written:
The Sword Of Moses
Cod OX 1531
But whatever he had written on the next few pages was now gone—torn out of the notebook, leaving only the telltale ragged stubs of ripped paper.
So Malchus had what he came for.
Whatever the old priest had noted down from the manuscript, Malchus had pulled it out and taken it with him.
Ava’s heart sank.
She dropped down into the chair next to the priest’s, fighting off a wave of dejection.
Malchus had gone, and he would not be back.
The librarian walked over to her. His face was deathly pale. “Shouldn’t we take him down?” His voice was weak and hesitant. “It’s not decent, leaving him there … like that.”
She shook her head. “Forensics will want the area undisturbed.”
“Forensics?” He looked confused. “I just can’t believe it. Professor Stone? Stealing manuscripts? Suicide?” He shook his head, bewildered.
“Not suicide.” Ava informed him gently.
The librarian’s eyes widened. “Murder?” he whispered, horrified.
“I expect they’ll find he met the killer up there.” She pointed to the first floor gallery above where he was hanging, accessed by a narrow staircase recessed into the bookcases. “I imagine he was knocked out, perhaps by inhalation to make no sound, then the noose was put around his neck, and he was lowered over the railing—I would guess with another rope looped under his arms so he could be gently put in place without any noise. That pile of books on the ground is merely to make it look like suicide.”
“How can you possibly know all this?” the librarian asked, aghast,
“You won’t find any obvious signs of foul play,” she replied. “The murderer is exceptionally talented at this. He used to do it for his government. Unless we find him, the coroner will almost certainly record suicide or an open verdict.”
“Shouldn’t we seal the building, or something?” The librarian pulled a mobile phone from his pocket. “I’m calling the police.”
“How many exits are there here?” Ferguson asked, striding towards him, “off this floor?”
“Just the two,” the librarian pointed over to the other end of the room, “where you came in, north and south.”
Ferguson spun round, as if stung. “That wasn’t a student in the hoodie,” he shouted, running back towards the door they had seen the figure exiting through as they had entered.
The moment Ferguson said it, Ava knew he was right.
There had been something odd about the figure.
Why had she not seen it?
His walk had been more solid—heavier than a young person’s.
Damn
!
She sprinted after Ferguson. He was already at the north staircase, so she peeled right to take the south. She hammered down the steps as fast as she could, passing no one on the way.
He could still be here!
She could not let him get away.
Again.
At the bottom of the steps, she arrived at the oval desk guarding the tower stairway.
“Did a man wearing a green hoodie just leave?” she demanded breathlessly.
The attendant looked back at her blankly.
“Where’s your CCTV?” She peered over the counter, looking for any screens that might show a live-feed from cameras around the building.
There were none.
He shook his head. “That’s University Security up at the Old Observatory. Nothing to do with us.”
She could hear Ferguson on the far side of the proscholium, asking similar questions.
“Please—it’s important,” she urged the guard, who continued to look blank, until his face lit up a little. “Oh, mature student, was it? Broad bloke. Yes. A few minutes ago. Didn’t have a bag or anything.”
“Which way?” Ava was running for the front door.
“Can’t really say,” the guard was looking after her. “Is it important?”
“Call security,” Ferguson shouted over as he headed for the door after Ava. “And tell your manager. The library’s going to be closed for the day.”
Outside the main door, Ava looked about the stone-flagged medieval Schools Quadrangle, shielding her eyes from the sunshine bouncing off the honey-coloured high stone walls.
Malchus could be anywhere.
She was going to have to make a guess.
There were ten doors off the quad, each labelled in Latin with the name of one of the old schools. She took in Music, Law, Grammar and History, Astronomy and Rhetoric, but had no time to read them all—he could have gone into any one of them, then back into the labyrinth of the library complex.
Alternatively, there were three main exits out of the quad. One to the left, one to the right, and the main gate straight ahead through the Tower of the Five Orders.
As she sprinted for the main gate, she could see Ferguson heading out of the left exit.
Once through the medieval archway, she looked up and down the street. To her right was the unmistakable dome of the Radcliffe Camera library, and beyond that the spire of the medieval university church. To her left, there were buildings leading up to a crossroads, and beyond it a tree-lined avenue.
There was no sign of anyone wearing a dark green hoodie.
He could be anywhere by now, wearing anything.
There were college and faculty buildings all around. All were open, and he could have ducked into any of them. It would have only taken seconds to rip off the hoodie and lose it.
She ran down to the square surrounding the Radcliffe Camera, but there was only a party of tourists clustered around a guide holding up a large blue and white golf umbrella.
Returning the other way, she peered into the front quadrangle of a small college opposite the library’s main gate.
It was empty.
Sprinting up to the crossroads, she looked around the busy junction, but there was no one resembling Malchus among the various groups on the pavements or entering the innumerable bookshops and teashops.
With increasing desperation, she headed into a pub on the corner, and hurried through the warren of sofas and chairs filling its low-ceilinged rooms and snug bars.
Nothing.
She ran out onto the pavement and down the narrow old street.
But he was nowhere in sight.
She stopped dead and looked up and down one last time, but there was little point.
She had lost him.
Dejectedly, she walked slowly back towards the crossroads. A few doors down she passed a shop selling music and books. She peered through the door, but there were no customers inside.
As she turned away, her eye was caught by the window display, showcasing a retrospective of 1960s and 1970s psychedelia.
In the centre was a hyper-colourful Led Zeppelin box-set, which proudly announced the inclusion of their concept film,
The Song Remains the Same.
Next to it was the bizarre cover of the Beatles’
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
, prominently featuring the band dressed as military musicians surrounded by the faces of dozens of counterculture icons. Glancing at the cover, she could not help but notice, in the top left hand corner, the unmistakable fleshy bald head of Aleister Crowley.
As she quickly scanned the window display, she could see a range of related books as well. Their jackets largely featured the bright swirly contrasting patterns and bubble typefaces of the time. But among them were a few more traditional covers—including one titled
The Avatar of Aiwass
, decorated with the same fleshy photograph of Aleister Crowley as on the Beatles’ album. It was a recent biography of the man the subtitle claimed was ‘the Beast 666’.