‘Adam … I, uh … I don’t think so. I’m not sure I have the authority, the right, to be recruiting people.’
‘But,’ he said coyly, ‘surely I know too much now? I’ve got to be some kind of a security risk? Better for me to join you chaps, right? Than be out there — you know, blabbing about all the stuff I’ve seen?’
‘I don’t think you’ll blab, Adam … I trust you. Anyway, if you come back here on Wednesday with a film crew in tow, you’ll simply find us gone.’
He hesitated, staring at her as a long and uncomfortable drawn-out silence filled the space between them. ‘All right.’ He nodded finally, awkward, a little embarrassed. ‘OK, well … I thought I’d ask. You know? If you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?’
She felt she owed him something of an explanation. ‘I’m sorry. The three of us are still new here. We’re still just trying to figure out whether we’re doing our jobs right. And I … just don’t think I’m meant — I’m allowed — to be signing anyone else up for the cause.’
‘No, that’s fine. Sorry I, uh … I asked.’ He stepped across to the computer table to collect his hard drive. ‘OK for me to take it back?’
She considered that for a moment. His work on decoding the Voynich was on there; his photographs of stones in the Kirklees Priory graveyard were on there. But then, none of it would mean much to anyone now.
She nodded. ‘Sure.’
He picked it up and tucked into the pocket of his jacket. ‘I suppose this is goodbye, then?’
She pressed her lips together, holding back an urge to change her mind, to tell him he could stay. ‘Yes. It’s goodbye, Adam,’ she said eventually.
His feet clacked across the concrete towards the door, and he pressed the green button. The shutter rattled up, letting daylight creep in across the archway.
He turned round. ‘Maybe one day I can write a book about it?’
‘As long as you call it fiction,’ she smiled. ‘Become an author? Why not? Sounds like a great idea.’
He ducked down to go under and looked outside. ‘Lovely day out there.’
He was about to step out, when she called out. ‘Adam!’
‘Yes?’
‘Your new life … I’m pretty sure it won’t involve you working in the World Trade Center.’ She looked briefly down at her watch. ‘Just … listen, you don’t need to go looking there this morning, OK? Go call your folks first thing. Forget about going to work.’
‘Will do.’
‘Promise me.’
He looked back at her, made a face, confused. ‘All right … I promise.’
‘Go on,’ said Maddy. She found her voice catching. She didn’t need him to hear that. To see that there was a struggle going on inside her head. ‘Go on and find what your new life is.’
‘Say goodbye to Sal for me,’ he said. Then he ducked outside and she watched the grey flannel of his office trousers walk up the cobbled backstreet and out of sight.
‘Take care, Adam,’ she whispered.
CHAPTER 86
1194, Kirklees Priory, Yorkshire
They stood amid the waist-high field listening to the hiss of a thousand ears of barley swaying in the gentle breeze. Becks handed Cabot an armful of sheets of parchment. ‘This is the complete duplication, with several minor alterations. You must look after it, keep it safe.’
Sebastien Cabot nodded dutifully. ‘I will. We have a crypt below the priory. I will see to it that it is stored there.’
‘That is good.’
Liam stepped forward. ‘Mr Cabot, we — we owe you our thanks.’
The old man grinned. ‘Aye, ’tis been a … a truly fascinating few months.’
‘That much is for sure.’
He held a hand out to Liam. ‘I have learned so very much. Perhaps too much. My … my faith has been troubled.’
‘Well — ’ Liam grasped his hand — ‘if it’s any help … despite all the things I know and all the things I’ve seen, I still pray to the fella upstairs — when I’m in a tight spot, that is.’
Cabot nodded. ‘There is comfort in that, Liam. Thank ye.’
‘Information: tachyon particles detected,’ said Becks. The soft tones of a court maiden she’d used just for John dispensed with for now. She turned to regard the circle of low stalks in the field, clipped down close to the ground from the last time the portal had opened here. ‘Stand back,’ she cautioned.
A moment later their loose robes fluttered in the gentle gust of displaced air and they were staring at the undulating sphere of the portal.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Cabot. I would invite you to come along with us but …’
Cabot shook his head. ‘’Tis a world, I think, that would send me mad. Anyway — ’ he held the parchment out — ‘I have a duty here, do I not?’
Liam nodded. ‘Aye, that’s true.’
‘We must go now,’ said Bob. He stepped towards the portal, then stopped, turned and offered his one good hand to Cabot. ‘A pleasure working with you, Mr Cabot.’
Cabot grasped his large hand. ‘And ye. Truly … I have never seen a man as indestructible as ye. I would not be surprised if the superstitious folk in these parts tell fireside stories about ye, Bob, long after ye’ve gone.’
Bob worked on a smile and let his hand go.
Becks was the last to bid him farewell. ‘If you ever see John again, tell him …’ She hesitated, unsure how to complete the sentence.
‘Shall I tell him that ye think fondly of him? That ye have returned to France?’
She nodded. ‘Affirmative. That would be an appropriate message to convey.’
The portal still shimmered, impatiently inviting them through.
‘We should go,’ said Bob. ‘It is unwise to open non-dimensional space longer than necessary.’
Becks released the old man’s hand and joined Bob and Liam at the edge of the sphere.
‘Take good care of it!’ said Liam.
Cabot nodded and watched as the three of them stepped into the churning perimeter, their solid outlines becoming wavering phantoms lost in a swirling dim world. Then, with a soft puff, the portal closed, leaving him alone once more in the swaying field of barley.
He looked up at some crows circling above the trees, now beginning to turn from their rich summer green to the golden hues that beckoned harvest time. The stifling warmth of summer was soon going to give way to fresher winds.
He sniffed the summer scent with his florid nose and found himself considering an idea.
So, the world is round now, is it?
The thought placed the hint of a smile on his craggy face. A vaguely reassuring notion, that. He looked up at the sun in the sky.
And ye stay put, do ye? It’s us that wanders round ye?
Again, a strangely comforting idea, that God’s works might be far larger, far greater than this one little world full of greedy and insane barons, princes, kings and popes.
CHAPTER 87
2001, New York
Sal watched the twisting, coiling outline of several figures, embracing one another. She thought she could make out a swaying field of yellow wheat or maize and a blue sky.
Then the figures, three of them, stepped closer and emerged a moment later into the archway.
She almost didn’t recognize two of them.
Bob’s fast-growing coconut hair was a shaggy, coarse, dark, wild bush. The other thing she immediately noticed was that his left arm was missing at the elbow … and one ear was gone.
‘Shadd-yah! Bob!’
But Liam … it was Liam; she almost could have passed him by in a street and not have recognized him. His dark hair had grown. Uncut for six months, it hung down on to his shoulders; parted scruffily in the middle, it draped either side of his face like dark theatre curtains. It was his wispy beard, however, that shocked her: a jaw lined with bristles, across his top lip a downy moustache, his mouth framed by a goatee.