We’d discussed this before. Nightingale said it was impossible to pick up organized “Newtonian” magic on your own. Without someone to teach you the difference, vestigia are hard to distinguish from the random background noise of your own brain. The same was true of the forma; Nightingale always had to demonstrate the form to me before I could learn it. To teach them to yourself you’d have to be the kind of insane monomaniac who’d deform his own eyeball to test his theories on optics—in short, someone like Isaac Newton.
“I don’t know,” said Nightingale. “After the war there weren’t that many of us left.”
“That should narrow down the suspects,” I said.
“Most of the survivors would be very old by now,” said Nightingale.
“What about other countries?” I asked.
“None of the continental powers came out of the war intact,” said Nightingale. “The Nazis rounded up any practitioners they could find in the occupied countries and killed any who refused to be co-opted. Those who didn’t die on their side mostly died fighting against them; same is true of the French and the Italians. We always believed that there was a Scandinavian tradition but they kept it very quiet.”
“What about the Americans?”
“There were volunteers right from the start of the war,” said Nightingale. “The Virtuous Men they called themselves—out of the University of Pennsylvania.” Others had arrived in the years following Pearl Harbor, and Nightingale had always had the impression that there was some deep animosity at work between them and the Virtuous Men. He thought it was doubtful that any of them could have returned to Britain after the war. “They blamed us for Ettersberg,” he said. “And there was an agreement.”
“Well of course there was,” I said. There was always an agreement.
Nightingale claimed he’d have spotted them if they’d started practicing in London. “They were hardly what you’d call subtle,” he said.
I asked about other countries—China, Russia, India, the Middle East, Africa. I couldn’t believe that they hadn’t at least some kind of magic. Nightingale admitted that he didn’t really know, but had the good grace to sound embarrassed.
“The world was different before the war,” he said. “We didn’t have this instantaneous access to information that your generation has. The world was a bigger, more mysterious place—we still dreamed of secret caves in the Mountains of the Moon, and tiger hunting in the Punjab.”
When all the map was red, I thought. When every boy expected his own adventure and girls had not yet been invented.
Toby barked as we overtook a juggernaut full of God knows what going God knows where.
“After the war it was as if I was waking up from a dream,” said Nightingale. “There were space rockets and computers and jumbo jets and it seemed like a ‘natural’ thing that the magic would go away.”
“You mean you didn’t bother looking,” I said.
“It was just me,” he said. “And I was responsible for the whole of London and the southeast. It never occurred to me that the old days might come back. Besides, we have Dunlop’s books so we know his teacher wasn’t from some foreign tradition—this is a home-grown black magician.”
“You can’t call them black magicians,” I said.
“You realize that we’re using black in its metaphorical sense here,” said Nightingale.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Words change what they mean, don’t they? Some people would call me a black magician.”
“You’re not a magician,” he said. “You’re barely even an apprentice.”
“You’re changing the subject,” I said.
“What should we call them?” he asked patiently.
“Ethically challenged magical practitioners,” I said.
“Just to satisfy my curiosity, you understand,” said Nightingale, “given that the only people ever likely to hear us say the words black magician are you, me, and Dr. Walid, why is changing them so important?”
“Because I don’t think the old world’s coming back anytime soon,” I said. “In fact, I think the new world might be arriving.”
OXFORD IS a strange place. As you go through the outskirts it could be any city in Britain, the same Edwardian suburban build, fading into Victorian, with the occasional mistake from the 1950s, and then you cross the Magdalen Bridge and suddenly you’re in the biggest concentration of late-medieval architecture this side of the eighteenth century. Historically it’s impressive, but from a traffic management perspective it meant it took almost as long to thread our way through the narrow streets as it did to drive up from London.
John Radcliffe, Royal physician to William and Mary, was famous in his own time for reading very little and writing almost nothing. So it stands to reason that one of the most famous libraries in Oxford was his creation. The Radcliffe Science Library is housed in a circular domed building that looks like St. Paul’s with the extraneous religious bits cut off. Inside was a lot smoothly carved stonework, old books, balconies, and the strained hush of young people being unnaturally quiet. Our contact was waiting for us by a notice board just inside the entrance.
Outside the big cities my very appearance can sometimes be enough to render certain people speechless. So it was with Harold Postmartin DPhil, FRS, curator of special collections at the Bodleian Library, who had clearly been expecting Nightingale to introduce someone “different” as the new apprentice. I could see him trying to parse the phrase but he’s colored in a way that wouldn’t cause offense and failing. I put him out of his misery by shaking his hand; my rule of thumb is if they don’t physically flinch from touching you, then eventually they’ll make the adjustment.
Postmartin was a stooped white-haired gentleman who looked much older and frailer than my father but had a surprisingly firm handshake.
“So you’re the new apprentice,” he said and managed to avoid it sounding like an accusation. I knew then we were going to be fine.
Like all modern libraries the visible bit of the Radcliffe was the tip of an iceberg; the bulk of the actual collection was submerged under Radcliffe Square in chambers filled with books and the intrusive hum of modern climate control. Postmartin led us down a series of whitewashed brick passages to a no-nonsense metal security door marked NO ADMITTANCE. Postmartin used a swipe card on the security pad and punched in a combination. The door unlocked with a solid clunk and we trooped in to find a chamber with exactly the same shelves and climate control as the rest of the collection. There was a single institutional desk with a top bare except for what looked like the product of a loveless marriage between an early Mac and an IBM PC.
“It’s an Amstrad PCW,” said Postmartin. “Before your time, I suppose.” He sat down on a purple molded plastic chair and booted up the antique. “No hardware connections, no USB ports, three-inch floppy disks that they don’t make anymore—this is security through obsolescence. Much like the Folly itself. They cannot hack, if I’m using the term correctly, what they cannot access.”
The screen was an alarming green color, monochrome I realized, like something from an old film. The three-inch disk actually clunked when the machine started to access it.
“Do you have the copy of the Principia?” asked Postmartin.
I handed it over and he started to leaf slowly through the pages. “Every copy at the library was marked in a unique way,” he said and stopped at a particular page and showed it to me. “You see there, that word has been underlined.”
I looked; it was the word regentis. “Is that significant?” I asked.
“We shall see,” he said. “Perhaps you should write it down.”
I wrote the word in my police notebook and as I did I noticed Postmartin furtively scribbling something on a pad he thought was out of my sight. When I was done he flicked through the pages until he found another mark, and again I noted down the word, pedem, and again I saw him write something else on his pad. We repeated the process three more times and then Postmartin asked me to rea
d the words back.
“Regentis, pedem, tolleret, loco, hostium,” I said.
Postmartin regarded me over the rim of his glasses. “And what do you think that signifies?” he asked.
“I think it signifies that the page numbers were more significant than the words,” I said.
Postmartin looked crestfallen. “How did you know?”
“I can read your mind,” I said.
Postmartin looked to Nightingale. “Can he?”
“No,” said Nightingale. “He spotted you writing the numbers down.”
“You’re a cruel man, Constable Grant,” said Postmartin. “No doubt you shall go far. The actual words, as you surmised, are irrelevant, but if the page numbers are arranged as a single alphanumeric string they form a unique identification number. Which we can enter into our venerable friend here and voilà …”
The PCW’s screen displayed a page of ugly green text, title, author, publisher, shelving notation, and a short list of the people who’d borrowed the book. The last person listed was Geoffrey Wheatcroft, who’d signed it out in July 1941 and never returned it.
“Oh,” said Postmartin in surprise. “Geoffrey Wheatcroft? Hardly what I’d call a nefarious fellow. Not your criminal type at all, is he, Thomas?”
“You know him?”
“I knew him,” said Postmartin. “He died last year—we were both at the funeral, although Thomas had to come as his own son to allay suspicions.”
“It was two years ago,” said Nightingale.
“Goodness, was it?” asked Postmartin. “Not a very good turnout if I remember.”
“Was he an active practitioner?” I asked.
“No,” said Nightingale. “He got his staff in 1939, wasn’t considered a wizard of the first rank, gave it up after the war and took up a position at Magdalen.”
“Teaching theology of all things,” said Postmartin.
“Magdalen College?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Nightingale suddenly thinking.
I got there first. “The same college as Jason Dunlop.”
NIGHTINGALE WANTED to head straight for Magdalen but Postmartin suggested a spot of lunch at the Eagle and Child. I thought a sit-down was a good idea because Nightingale was favoring his left side again and looking a bit peaky, to be honest. Nightingale compromised by suggesting that we should meet at the pub after visiting the college. Postmartin suggested that I go with him so that he could fill me in on a few things on the way.
“If you think that’s really necessary,” said Nightingale before I could object.
“I believe it is,” said Postmartin.
“I see,” said Nightingale. “Well, if you feel that’s best …”
Postmartin said he thought it was capital and so we accompanied him back to the car where I introduced him to Toby, who exited the vehicle in a cloud of smell. I suggested that Nightingale take the Jag—that way we’d drive back from the pub and he, at least, wouldn’t be walking.
“So this is the famous ghost-hunting dog,” he said.
“I didn’t know he was famous,” I said.
Postmartin led me down an alleyway so authentically late medieval that it still had a stone culver running down the middle to act as a sewer. “Not that it’s used for its original function,” said Postmartin.
It was busy with students and tourists all doing their best to ignore the cyclists who tried to mow down both with gay abandon.
I asked Postmartin what role he played in the intricate network of mostly unwritten agreements that constituted English magical law enforcement.
“When you and Nightingale write reports, I’m the one who reads them,” he said. “At least those portions that are relevant.”
“So are you Nightingale’s governor?” I asked.
Postmartin chuckled. “No,” he said. “I’m the archivist. I’m in charge of the great man’s papers and the papers of all lesser beings that have stood on his shoulders since. Even Nightingale and you.”
After all that history it was quite nice to turn onto Broad Street, which at least had a few Victorian terraces and an Oxfam.
“This way,” said Postmartin.
“Newton was a Cambridge man,” I said. “Why are his papers here?”
“The same reason they didn’t want his alchemistical works there,” said Postmartin. “Once he was safely dead old Isaac became their shining star of science and reason—I doubt they wanted that picture complicated by what was, let’s face it, a complicated man at the best of times.”
Oxford continued to be solidly Tudor with sudden bursts of Georgian exuberance until we reached the Eagle and Child pub on St. Giles.
“Good,” said Postmartin as we sat down in what he called a “nook.” “Thomas isn’t here yet. One finds it so much easier to have a certain kind of conversation with a sherry in one’s hand.”
When you’re a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don’t want to know.
He had his sherry, I had a lemonade.
“I take it you understand how unprecedented it was for Thomas to take on an apprentice?” asked Postmartin.
“People have made that pretty clear,” I said.
“I think perhaps he should have taken that step earlier,” said Postmartin. “Once it was clear that reports of the death of magic had been greatly exaggerated.”
“What gave the magic away?”
“Thomas aging backward was a bit of a clue,” said Postmartin. “I archive Dr. Walid’s reports and the bits that I understand are … strange.”
“Should I be worried?” I asked. I’d only recently gotten used to the idea that my governor was born in 1900 and had, according to him, been getting young again since the early 1970s. Nightingale thought it might be linked to the general increase in magical activity since the ’60s, but didn’t really want to look a gift horse in the mouth. I didn’t blame him.
“I wish I knew,” said Postmartin. He reached into his pocket and handed me a card. It had Postmartin’s number, email, and, I was surprised to see, Twitter address. “If you have any concerns you can contact me.”
“And if I contact you,” I said. “What will you do?”
“I’ll listen to your concerns,” he said. “And I’ll be very sympathetic.”
It was at least another hour before Nightingale joined us, and I then got to watch him sink a pint of bitter while he outlined what he’d discovered—which was, as far as Nightingale could determine, that Jason Dunlop had had no contact with Geoffrey Wheatcroft while at the university.
Nightingale had at least thought to pick up a printout of every student and lecturer who’d been at Magdalen at the same time as our man Jason. Plus a list of every student who had ever attended a class by Geoffrey Wheatcroft. It added up to a stack of hardcopy of just the right size and thickness for beating a suspect without leaving a bruise—if that’s where your idea of law enforcement took you. If the data was entered into HOLMES it could be automatically crosschecked against any other names that came up during the mundane phase of the inquiry. The Murder Team under Stephanopoulis had at least three civilian workers whose only job was to do that sort of tedious, time-consuming, but totally vital kind of work. What did the Folly have? You can guess what the Folly had, and he wasn’t happy at the prospect.
Postmartin asked what Nightingale planned to do next.
Nightingale grimaced and took another pull on his pint. “I thought I’d retrieve the remainder of library cards from Ambrose House. It’s time to see where the rest of the books came from.”
NIGHTINGALE TOLD me to get off the motorway at junction 5 and we drove through Stockenchurch, which appeared to be a hospital with a rather nice village attached, before turning left onto a B-road, which quickly became a narrow lane that ran between the tall green walls of very old-fashioned hedgerows.
“A large part of the estate is rented to l
ocal farmers,” said Nightingale. “The gate is coming up on your left.”
If he hadn’t warned me I’d have overshot. The hedgerow abruptly became a high stone wall broken by a wide wrought-iron gate. I stopped the car while Nightingale got out, followed by Toby, and unlocked the gate with a big iron key. He opened the gate with a standard horror-movie creaking noise and waved me through while Toby made a point of marking the gatepost. I stopped and waited for Nightingale to get back in but he pointed to where the drive turned suddenly behind a stand of trees.
“Meet me around the corner,” he said. “It’s not far.”
He was right: I turned the corner and there was the main building of the school right in front of me. The Jag crunched to a halt on the gravel drive and I got out to have a look.
It had been fifty years since it was occupied, you could tell that. The lawn and the formal beds had reverted to brambles, stinging nettles, toadflax, and cow parsley—I learned those names later in case you’re wondering—and the house was a weathered gray color, its large sash windows boarded shut. I’d been expecting something Gothic but this was more like a Regency terrace that had escaped to the countryside and had shot out in all directions before some cruel architect could round it up and pen it back into its original narrow frontage. It was abandoned but not derelict. I could see the guttering was clear, and there were patches of the roof that had clearly been retiled.
Toby came whirring past, yapped a couple of times to get my attention, and then headed into a patch of overgrown woods to the left of the school. Clearly he was a country dog at heart. Nightingale arrived soon after.
“I expected it to have been redeveloped,” I said.
“As what?” asked Nightingale.
“I don’t know. Country hotel and conference center, health spa, celebrity rehab clinic?”
“No,” said Nightingale after I’d explained what a celebrity rehab clinic was. “The Folly still owns the whole estate, and the rents from the farms pay for the maintenance.”
“Why wasn’t it sold off?”