The Burning Library, page 14
They set off to join Charlotte and Bridget, who were standing outside the railway arches. The space beneath each arch was closed off with a pair of large wooden doors. They’d been neglected. Chipped paint and rotten planks, their edges nibbled by decay. Diana wondered if the architect would want to preserve some of these features or raze it all.
“What else have you worked on?” she asked the architect.
“Until recently I’ve been working with a practice in the UAE. Some very exciting things happening out there.”
“There’s a lot of money washing around, I suppose.”
“Yes, and a hunger for buildings that innovate.”
She would probably raze the arches, then. But Diana didn’t have a problem with that. Sometimes you needed to destroy to create.
Ahead, Bridget wrenched open one of the big doors. Charlotte followed her inside.
“Now I’m trying to start my own practice in London,” the architect said. “I’ve done a couple of private homes, but I want to work on bigger projects. Something like this would be the dream.”
I’ll bet it would, Diana thought. The architect would have to earn her place on this, but Diana liked her confidence already. It was women like her who would inherit the benefits of what Diana was working for and build on that. Amazing how a short conversation and a bit of good news from Magnus could kindle hope and inject energy into a crappy day.
They arrived at the arches. Diana gestured for the architect to enter the space first. The door swung shut behind them.
Charlotte and Bridget were standing beneath a lightbulb that hung from the tall arched ceiling. The bulb cast a desultory glow, illuminating the exposed brick on the underside of the arch. Water dripped from it. In a corner two pigeons huddled on a ledge near a hole in the wall that opened to daylight. The acoustics were strange, distorting and amplifying their cooing and scratching, magnifying the sound of dripping water.
Introductions over, the architect said, “So, there’s a viewpoint on the top of the arches that we can access from here. You can see the whole site from there. It might be a good place to explain some of my preliminary concepts.”
“Great,” Bridget said.
“Great,” the architect echoed back. Everyone was smiling. “It’s a bit of a dodgy climb, so watch your step. Maybe best to use phone lights. I promise it’s worth it!”
Bridget led and Charlotte followed.
The architect said, “We probably shouldn’t have more than two people on the stairs at once. I don’t know how much weight they’ll bear.”
Diana waited as Charlotte and Bridget climbed. The stairs were made from metal that was rusted in places. It wasn’t clear how firmly they were attached to the wall. Light from Charlotte’s and Bridget’s phones bounced off the surfaces, then they disappeared through the door at the top of the stairs. Their voices suddenly sounded quite far away.
“After you,” the architect said.
Diana stepped toward the staircase and directed the light from her phone onto the first few treads.
She didn’t immediately sense danger when she felt the barrel of a gun nestle in the pocket at the base of her skull. The sensation was cold and strangely simple. She hadn’t processed what it was or what it meant before the architect pulled the trigger a millisecond later.
The sound of the shot was a dull thud, the silencer doing its work.
Diana’s body fell backward. The architect stepped neatly out of its way, and it landed hard on the damp floor. A halo of blood emerged from the wound in Diana’s head as the architect watched. It was viscous and berry red.
Bridget made her way carefully back down the stairs and knelt to inspect the body to make sure Diana was dead. She took care to avoid the blood.
Charlotte stood at the top, watching, shock on her face, the color draining from it, before she descended.
“For God’s sake, Bridget,” she said. “Did it have to be so quick?”
“She was a liability. We agreed she had to go.”
“We only just agreed it!”
“You know the policy. We eradicate problems as soon as we identify them. Do you have a problem with that?”
“She did good work, and she was a friend.” There was a snag in Charlotte’s voice.
“A friend carrying on an affair with Judge Henry Macdonald after we got what we wanted from him. A friend whose affair with him compromised us because she was too blind to see that his wife was one of them. A friend who made a fucking mess of disposing of the Chinese girl’s body, because it just washed up. And, yes, the DNA is a match. I don’t enjoy firefighting. Larks do their jobs properly or they go.”
“I know why we’ve done this,” Charlotte snapped. “It doesn’t mean I’m happy about how and when. We could have afforded her a little more dignity than this. And how do I explain it? It’s going to bring a world of unwanted attention to the Institute when we could really do without it.”
Bridget stepped around the body and walked toward the sliver of natural light slicing through the doorway. At the door she turned back and said, “Get Anya Brown in front of that embroidery and those books.”
Charlotte was still staring at the body. “Well, here’s the thing,” she said. “I gave the embroidery to Diana.” She picked up Diana’s bag and rifled through it. Then her pockets. “It’s not here,” she said.
“Then check her bloody hotel room.”
The “architect” stood silently by. She said nothing; she was paid to have no memory of what she saw or heard and no comment, but she felt happy. One clean, professional shot was always the goal. It was important to end a life efficiently, when it was deserved. And thank God she didn’t have to pretend to know about architecture anymore.
“Can I move her now?” she asked.
“Yes,” Bridget snapped. “You know what to do.”
Charlotte looked at her. “What do you mean?”
Sid
Sid left his neighbor’s cottage after about an hour, feeling blindsided. While he was with her, he’d found her convincing, but now that he was back home, alone, he wasn’t so sure. He had zero appetite for believing that his new life was going to implode, and on that basis alone the temptation not to believe her was strong.
He paced the cottage. Several times he started to call Anya, but didn’t go through with it. If his neighbor was wrong, he didn’t need to bother Anya; he could tell her all about it when she got home. It might even entertain her. But if his neighbor was right, best not to tell Anya when she was with Diana Cornish. She would feel afraid, and might not be able to hide how she felt. That could be dangerous. He decided he would hold out until she got home and talk to her in person.
He sent her a quick text: How are you doing? Good day?
She didn’t reply right away. Sid decided he would try to find out more. He didn’t have a number for Paul, but he knew where he lived, because Paul and Giulia had taken him on a walking tour past their house the first time he visited. Sid vaguely remembered that Paul ran the admin side of his business from their place. Hopefully, he would be home and Giulia would not.
Sid walked around the headland, following the walls of the cathedral complex. The sea glinted silver where the sun broke through. Waves broke over the harbor walls.
Paul and Giulia lived in a modern place just behind East Sands Beach, overlooking the Kinness Burn, a wide, shallow stream. A heron stood in the water, still as stone, and gulls shrieked overhead, but the sound fought to be heard over the clanging of cables against the masts of the boats docked at the mouth of the burn.
The house was part painted white and part clad in weathered wood. It had large picture windows and a balcony at the back, overlooking the street. In the yard a small silver birch offered some privacy but not much.
Sid pressed the buzzer and waited. He was about to give up when Paul answered. He looked disheveled, as if he’d just pulled on his clothes, and he’d lost weight, too. Shockingly, he was a shadow of the man Sid had met before.
“Good to see you,” Paul said.
“I’m sorry to drop in on you, but I was wondering if you were free for a chat?”
Paul glanced over Sid’s shoulder, then smiled tightly. “No worries. Come in.”
“Are you sure this is okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Do you want a coffee? I could use one.”
Sid took a seat on a stool at the kitchen island. Paul opened the blinds, and the drab outside light drifted into the open-plan space. The décor was simple, but expensive. Designer lamps and abstract paintings brought color to the sleek, minimalist furnishings.
Paul prepared coffee. As he set the French press and two mugs out on the island, Sid noticed his hands were shaking.
Paul said, “I’ve been meaning to get in touch, mate. Just been a bit busy. How’s it going? The cottage working out for you?”
“Yeah, great. We like it.” Sid paused. “Can I ask you about a woman who lived there before me and Anya?”
“Not sure I know much about that,” Paul said.
“She worked for the Institute. Her name was Minxu, or Min.”
“Oh, yeah, maybe Giulia mentioned her. What’s this about, mate?”
“Do you know what kind of work Minxu did?”
Paul shrugged. “I dunno. Historical stuff, I guess, like the others. Giulia didn’t talk about her much. I don’t think she was there long.” His words couldn’t have sounded blander, but there was a muscle twitching in his jaw. Sid watched him carefully.
“Did she leave abruptly?” Paul would surely know this, as it was his job to manage the cottage.
“Yeah, I think she did. I’d forgotten, but now you say it.” Paul plunged the French press, poured the coffee. There was that tremor again.
“Milk or sugar?” he asked.
“Black’s fine.”
“Yeah,” Paul said as he slid Sid’s mug toward him. “It’s coming back to me a bit. I think Min might have had some family troubles. They wanted her home.”
“Right,” Sid said. “Makes sense.”
Paul took a sip of coffee and put his cup down. He seemed to have to force himself to raise his eyes to meet Sid’s, and when he did, he shook his head. Sid felt his stomach lurch, because there was no mistaking what he saw in Paul’s expression. It was pure fear.
Clio
Clio waited at Harringay Green Lanes tube station, her usual coffee order in hand. Large latte, fully caffeinated. The train arrived in a screech of brakes and a rush of hot, stinky air. Clio stepped on board, grateful that it wasn’t too full. She’d always been an early bird because she felt it gave her an advantage. What was that old saying about women in the workplace? They had to work twice as hard for half as much.
She was getting used to the office without Lillian. They all were; it had been hard for everybody. Usually, Clio tried not to think about it, but since she’d been to Wiltshire and spoken to Lady Arden she couldn’t get Lillian out of her mind. She wondered if she should give that butler a call, find out if he had a name for the woman who’d been to the house to ask about the embroidery before she did.
At the office, she squeezed past her colleagues’ desks to reach her own. Since Lillian retired, and, ominously, hadn’t been replaced, Scotland Yard’s Art and Antiques Squad office space consisted of just four desks and four officers, in a cramped corner of a large open-plan workspace. They were responsible for policing the second-largest art market in the world. As her boss was fond of reminding them, Italy employed two hundred carabinieri to do the same job.
Clio loved her work, though. It was a man’s world but not overtly misogynist. Nothing she couldn’t handle, anyway. The humor tended toward childish, not harmful. If it crossed a line, Clio gave as good as she got, just the way Lillian taught her.
“Catch-up?” A rhetorical question from the boss, Detective Inspector Tim Keenan. A career burdened by groaning caseloads, two divorces, and a chronic case of mortal ennui had etched deep lines on his face.
“Yep. Coming,” she said.
They gathered in a meeting room. Clio listened carefully to updates on a major fraud case. It was complicated, the money trail long and complex, leading from London via Paris to some shell companies registered in the Bahamas.
“So, there’s that,” Tim said, “and we’ve had an email from a CID colleague asking for help. I’ll read it to you. ‘Dog walker found a body in the early hours this morning in a park in Tower Hamlets. The body has been laid out in a weird way on a chalk drawing.’ She’s sent a photo, but I haven’t looked at it yet. They’re asking for help to interpret it.”
He swiveled his laptop so everyone could see the screen. The photograph was horrendous.
They were looking at a dead female, with an exit wound in her forehead. She was dressed in an old-fashioned costume: a dark red dress, low cut, with white details on the cuffs and the décolletage, and a tasseled scarf wrapped loosely around her head, like a turban. Her body lay on its side, posed in a sort of crouch, knees bent, bare feet slightly separated, toes pointed.
Her arms were arranged so that one hand was bent toward her bosom, and in it was a long, feathery palm frond. The other hand was resting on a chalk drawing of a spiked wheel. Chalk had also been used to draw a crown on her head, topped by a line that could suggest a halo, and elsewhere it had been heavily applied to create a rectangle around her body, framing it from the waist up. Suddenly, the symbolism made sense to Clio. “This is supposed to represent an actual painting, Artemisia Gentileschi’s portrait of St. Katherine of Alexandria. It’s in the National Gallery. May I?”
Tim pushed the laptop toward her. Clio made a new tab and brought up an image of the painting beside the photograph the detective had sent so she could show them the similarities. The painting was one of her favorites, which made this feel strangely personal. She studied both images closely.
Where else had she seen a palm frond lately? The answer came to her suddenly: it was in a botanical print on the wall of Eleanor Bruton’s study. Which made her think of something else: the sun that Eleanor Bruton had drawn at the top of her poem. What if it wasn’t a sun, but a wheel just like this one? Spiked, or flaming. Eleanor was no artist, but it didn’t matter which she’d intended—both were symbols of Saint Katherine.
Which begged the question: Was this murder linked to the group that Lillian had described?
“Have they identified the woman?” Clio asked.
“Yes, she had ID on her. She’s a professor, called Diana Cornish. She works for the Institute of Manuscript Studies in St. Andrews.”
Clio stiffened. “What did you say?” It was a couple of weeks since she’d spoken to the butler at Lady Arden’s home, and he’d told her that it was someone from St. Andrews who’d asked about the embroidery. She needed to follow that up now.
As Tim repeated what he’d said, she felt as if every nerve in her body was twitching. Lillian might not have wanted her to tell anyone that she was looking into Eleanor, but she couldn’t keep everything to herself now. If she compromised a murder investigation by withholding what she knew, she could lose her job. That couldn’t happen.
Besides, she trusted Tim. She said, “Boss, can we talk in private? I need to show you something, and I need to tell you what I did on leave.”
Anya
I scanned the timetable board at King’s Cross Station, looking for the train to Cambridge. Platform 8. In fifteen minutes.
I couldn’t believe I was going there for the first time in my life. But I’d do anything for Mum, even the one thing I swore I wouldn’t.
The train whisked me north of London into a rural landscape that flattened out as we traveled. The sky stretched wider. The horizon lengthened.
Magnus wanted me to come and look at more of his manuscripts before I went back up north. He said he kept ten of his favorites in Cambridge because he couldn’t bear to be parted from them. The rest were in Scotland, at Tracy’s castle, where he felt they were safest. “We can go today,” he said. “My driver will take us.”
Sid had messaged to ask how I was doing. He’d freak out if I told him what had happened and where I was going, and I couldn’t talk now because the train was crowded and I didn’t want to be overheard. For all I knew, Magnus could have someone watching me. If he could have me snatched off the pavement in Central London, who knew what else he was capable of?
I wrote: You wouldn’t believe how my day is going. I’ll call later.
I messaged Diana to let her know what I was doing but didn’t get a reply.
I thought about Mum. Telling her anything about today was totally out of the question; she must never know. But it would be hard because she and I had never kept secrets from each other.
As the train pulled in, my eyes were glued to the sign saying “Cambridge” as it slid past the window, proof my world had been knocked off kilter. I walked from the station into the center. When I got there, I felt strangely at home, which was disconcerting. I knew this world of colleges and their courtyards, of clipped lawns, streets full of students and dons, and porters in their waistcoats and hats at the college gates. Even the air was marshy and close, just like Oxford’s.
I had an hour to kill before meeting my father. I went to see the site where his library would be built, drawn there like a moth to a flame.
Tall hoardings surrounded the lot. It was adjacent to Magnus’s former college. A crane was at work, hoisting up a beam. The building had risen two stories from the ground already. The hoardings were covered in signs advertising the builders and architects, with an artist’s rendering of what the library would eventually look like and an electronic countdown clock to the date it should be finished.
I’d seen pictures online already, but in person it was so much more impressive. Its sheer size and the audacity of raising such a modern building in the heart of the medieval city were breathtaking. It was remarkable that one man could do this and give it his name. It was ambition on a phenomenal scale.
My phone buzzed. Mum. My heart skipped a beat, and I debated whether to answer, because the scale of my emotional betrayal of her felt overwhelming, and I didn’t know if or how I could keep that out of my voice or my face, but I didn’t want her to worry. And I needed to know how she was.
