The Titanic Enigma (15 page)

‘Who were . . .?’ Lou nodded towards the dead men.

‘I would guess they’re the men who killed the Campions or drove you off the road. They obviously have a problem with anyone knowing about the contents of Egbert Fortescue’s
papers.’

Kate closed her eyes for a second and brought a hand to her forehead.

‘Come on,’ Derham said, reaching for her elbow. ‘You’ve had enough for one evening.’

‘But . . .’

‘No more “buts” . . . and that’s an order.’

‘I’m not under your command.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, you are.’

Kate gently pulled her arm back. ‘OK, OK, but I need to get some papers from the lab. I know I won’t sleep a wink – but whatever you command!’

Jerry glanced at Lou, who shrugged his shoulders.

They took the stairs down to ground level. Derham’s cell phone rang.

‘Yeah . . . OK.’ He looked up. ‘Clean-up team should be here in a couple of minutes.’

‘Makes it sound so horribly clinical,’ Kate responded.

They heard the rumble of heavy vehicles approaching. Two navy trucks and a military police car were heading along the road to the institute.

Derham indicated the door to the lab building. ‘I’ll come up with you.’

They took the lift to the fourth floor. It opened onto a silent, dimly lit corridor. Kate led the way, right, then left. The door to the lab stood ajar, lights ablaze. They ran towards it and
stopped in the doorway looking on in disbelief.

‘Fuck . . .’ Kate said resignedly.

The place was a wreck. It looked like nothing remained where it should have been. The floor was covered with broken glassware, papers had been scattered randomly, their desks upturned, chairs
smashed. Two Macs lay shattered on the floor.

‘The scanner has been destroyed,’ Lou said, pointing up to a metal box about the size of a desktop printer dangling from the ceiling by a few wires. Its front screen was smashed
in.

He looked over to the sealed analysis chamber in the far corner. This was where they had studied and photocopied the delicate papers from Fortescue’s briefcase. He ran over to it, Kate
close behind. The front panel had been staved in; glass pellets lay scattered across the floor. The briefcase and the papers had gone.

‘Oh, God . . . No!’ Lou yelled, the pain of the past few hours finally getting to him.

They picked their way around the vandalized glass unit. Lou leaned in and using a length of metal he gingerly pushed aside piles of glass inside the box.

‘What was in there?’ Derham asked, pointing to the chamber.

‘The original documents from Fortescue’s briefcase.’

Derham closed his eyes for a second, tipped his head back, and took a deep breath. ‘Please tell me there are copies.’

‘There were. We gave one set to Newman, remember? The other is now ash.’

Southampton Docks. Wednesday, 10 April 1912.

Dr Egbert Fortescue turned up the collar of his overcoat. At 6.45 a.m., the sky was afresh and radiant blue, casting the cranes and dock winches into sharp
relief.

Last night he had stayed at the South Western Hotel in Southampton. The place had been packed with other passengers ready to embark on the
Titanic
and there was an
atmosphere of excitement in the smoking room after dinner.

The porter had come at six o’clock to take his luggage and he had been free to make his way over to the nearby docks with plenty of time before the ship was due to depart at
noon.

Two pieces of luggage he would not hand over, but kept close by him: a pair of metal cases, one about the size of a Gladstone bag contained his briefcase of papers; the other,
approximately six inches square, carried the ibnium isotope. Both were latched and locked and he kept a firm grip on their leather handles. On the train down to Southampton he had shut himself away
in a private compartment and worked on his papers, trying to perfect and extend the work he and Rutherford had forged ahead with after the success of the experiment three months
earlier.

He was excited. He had been chosen to make what the small cadre of insiders in their project knew would be a historic voyage across the Atlantic. He knew, Rutherford knew, and a
select few within the British and American governments knew that time was running out, that war with Germany could not be far away. Diplomats persisted in denying the possibility, but war was
inevitable, and with the contents of his boxes, Fortescue had the key to victory.

The fact that he was the only man for the job gave him a huge confidence boost. Rutherford was too old and he had a professorship and a family to keep him in England. But, more
importantly, even though he was officially just Rutherford’s assistant and nothing was ever said between the two scientists, they both knew that he, Fortescue, was the real genius of the
pair. It was he, not Rutherford, who had come up with the concept of atomic fission, and it was he who had derived most of the theoretical basis behind their experimental
successes.

With just an hour to go before the huge ship was due to cast off and begin its six-day transatlantic voyage, many of the passengers were already aboard, and relatives and friends of
those about to set sail had gathered on the quayside. Fortescue turned the corner close to the end of the western dock and there it was, RMS
Titanic
, the largest man-made moving object in
creation.

He had been prepared for it, of course. He had read the statistics, analysed the plans; he was a scientist, not easily impressed by engineering feats, but even he was staggered by
it.

Fortescue had approached the vessel head-on, the bow soaring up into the clear blue sky, the paintwork and the chrome glistening, deck upon deck; smooth, elegant lines; blue, black
and white shining metal sweeping the length of three football pitches.

He stopped and stared, transfixed, following the graceful curves, admiring the symmetry, and he felt a burst of excitement deep inside. Hundreds of passengers stood leaning on the
railings surveying the people on dry land below. Some of them were waving; others simply admired the grandstand view across the quays to the outskirts of Southampton, where chimneys spewed smoke
and terraced houses stretched in long curving rows that seemed to dissolve into fog and low cloud.

There was a palpable sense of excitement to which Fortescue was not immune. He walked along a wood-panelled corridor that opened out into a large circular space, the floor covered
with a sumptuous red and black patterned Worcester carpet. And there, directly ahead, he caught his first sight of perhaps the most beautiful and impressive part of the ship: the aft Grand
Staircase, one of two elegantly sweeping stairways that looked as though they had been lifted from a massive hotel or stately home and inserted into this floating palace.

Fortescue had read about the staircase and some of the other wonders of the ship, such as its many restaurants, including the Ritz à la carte fine dining restaurant, the
Café Parisien, which included an outdoor section called the Verandah Café, and the Palm Court for the use of First and Second Class passengers. Then there was the gymnasium with its
full-time exercise instructor and, on the Middle F Deck, the indoor heated swimming pool with its accompanying hot showers and Turkish baths.

He strode over to a framed plan of the ship hanging on a wall close to one of the corridors leading away from the staircase. A couple turned and walked away, disagreeing about the
best way to get to their room. Fortescue put his metal boxes on the carpet between his feet, and with one finger tracing the route on the glass he quickly worked out the way to his cabin, C16.
Turning, he almost collided with a young couple standing just behind him. The woman was tall and slender, wearing an elegant powder-blue dress with matching bonnet and gloves. Blonde curls trailed
to her shoulders beneath the hat. She had a strikingly beautiful face, high cheekbones and large brown eyes. The man had a neatly groomed moustache styled according to the French fashion, dark,
very short hair, and a handsome face that was only ruined by his current stern expression. He looked a little older than the woman.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Fortescue said formally and lifted his hat a fraction of an inch. He stepped aside and the woman gave him a bright smile, the man a frown, and he was
then striding towards the main corridor leading on to the First Class cabins on C-Deck.

After it had been decided that Fortescue would be the one to carry the documents and isotope sample to America, there had been some considerable debate about the details of the
voyage. In the original government plans, Fortescue was to be assigned a Second Class ticket. It was believed to be the best compromise. Third would have been insulting and perhaps even unsafe;
First was seen as extravagant; Second was about right. Fortescue, though, was not happy about it. He had been born into money. His father, Sir Clive Fortescue, was a millionaire businessman; his
mother, Cymbeline, had come from a noble family who could trace their ancestry back to Henry VII. Egbert himself had attended Harrow before going up to Cambridge. He was a practical, hard-working
and unfailingly dedicated scientist but he was also used to the finer things in life and he saw no reason to ignore comfort simply because he had chosen a career in science.

He had forsaken much of his birthright by becoming an academic. His family, in particular his father, had not approved initially and it had taken Egbert several years to thaw the
frosty attitude his father had towards his middle son. But the old man had gradually relented when he realized Egbert was serious about what he was doing in Manchester and took heed of those who
spoke up for the young man’s brilliance.

At the university, Fortescue had mucked in with his sleeves rolled up. He had a decent enough flat in the city, which he had furnished nicely and he still liked to dress well, even
in the lab, but many of the harder edges of his upper-class upbringing had been worn down and he was afar better man for it.

Fortescue’s sense of style had always amused Rutherford, who was himself a stoic, nuts-and-bolts, no-nonsense type who lived in a comfortable home with his family, wore
modestly tailored suits and had no taste for fine food, strong liquor or luxury of any sort. He viewed Fortescue as something of a dandy, but he would never have considered his assistant spoilt. To
be spoilt meant precisely that – to have been ruined by mollycoddling or overindulgence and privilege. Fortescue was that rare and noble figure, a man born of privilege who had been guided by
a desire to understand and to learn. Rutherford respected the young man even more because he was from a wealthy family.

Even so, the British government had refused to cover the extra cost of a First Class cabin, a difference of some eighteen pounds. Rutherford would not even contemplate asking the
university for the money and so Egbert had dipped into his own pocket.

He walked into C16. It was actually a little larger than he had expected. One of the advertising slogans for the
Titanic
trumpeted in
The Times
was that Second
Class on this ship was like First on any other liner, so First was extra luxurious. And it seemed to be true. He knew from what he had read that the First Class cabins, the parlours and massive
suites were decorated in a variety of styles. Some were done out in what was called Empire Style – plenty of gold leaf and red velvet; another design was called Adams – a little
simpler, but frilly. His room was decorated in what was known as Dutch Traditional – dark wood, curtains and a heavily patterned carpet. It was pleasing to Fortescue’s
eye.

Glancing round, he saw the ample bed, a nice sofa and a small table with four chairs, all very good quality and customized specially for this room. The pillows were fulsome and the
coverlet nicely embroidered in gold and red. The sink to the left of the room was marble and came with gold-plated taps. Above these was a beautifully framed mirror. He caught his reflection: a
rather gaunt face, his black hair slicked back with Roland’s Macassar Oil accentuating his prominent cheekbones and large, dark eyes.

Turning back to the room, he noted that his suitcases had been brought from the hotel. ‘Well, I think this is going to be worth every penny,’ he said
aloud.

Crouching down, he found the safe under the bed. Recalling the private combination he had been given with his ticket, he opened the safe and stowed away his precious boxes with their
priceless contents – the ibnium isotope in its protective case and his leather briefcase holding his latest research documents secured inside the second locked box. He then spun the dial on
the front of the safe and stood up.

With his brief perusal of the plan near the Grand Staircase he had memorized the layout of the entire ship. It was one of his gifts – an almost perfect analytical memory, a
natural ability that had served him extremely well in his chosen career. He stepped out of his cabin, locked the door and headed along a carpeted corridor feeling elated.

He emerged onto the boat deck, a promenade that was used by both First and Second Class passengers, and as he approached the railing he heard a whistle sound. This was followed by a
loud blast from the ship’s klaxon. The
Titanic
juddered as it pulled away from the quayside.

Two days out of Southampton. Friday, 12 April 1912.

The ocean was calm and the
Titanic
as steady as a dart. But even so, the majority of passengers in First Class were confined to their cabins afraid to
move too far from their marble washbasins.