The Scroll Read online

  “No. Use your phone if you like,” Monty suggested. “See if it’s any better. You’re pretty good technically.”

  Hank gave him a quick glance, sensing the difference between ‘technically’ and ‘artistically’. But he did not argue. He took his cell phone out of his pocket, adjusted the settings, looked through the view finder and took three separate photographs. He went back to the first one to look at it, frowned, turned to the second, then the third. He looked up at Monty.

  Monty felt the chill creep over his skin.

  “Nothing,” Hank said quietly. “Blank.”

  “I’ll call Roger,” Monty grasped for the only useful thing he could do. He picked up the telephone and dialled Roger Williams’ number. He let it ring fifteen times. There was no answer.

  He tried again the following day, and again Roger did not pick up. Monty was busy cataloguing the rest of the books from the Greville estate when he became aware of someone standing in the doorway watching him. He was round-faced, broad-browed and smiling benignly, but there was a gravity in his dark eyes, and a very definite knowledge of his own importance in his posture. He was dressed in a clergyman’s cassock and he had a purple vestment below his high, white collar.

  Monty scrambled to his feet. “I’m sorry, sir,” he apologized awkwardly. “I didn’t hear you come in. Can I help you?”

  The man smiled even more widely. “I’m sure you can, Mr. Danforth.”

  Monty felt a sudden stab of alarm like a prickle on his skin, a warning of danger. This prince of the church knew his name, just as the old man of the previous evening had done. He had not questioned it at the time, but he did now. It was Roger’s name on the door and on the company letterhead. Monty’s name appeared nowhere. And why had they not assumed he was Roger? Wouldn’t that be the natural thing to do?

  “You have me at a disadvantage, Your Grace,” he said rather crisply. “I am quite sure I would remember if we had met.”

  The man smiled again. “I’m sure you would. And yet you greeted me correctly, and with courtesy. There is no need as yet for us to go beyond that. I imagine you also know why I am here. You are not only knowledgeable on books of all types, Mr. Danforth, and an intelligent man, you are also, I believe, unusually sensitive to the power of evil, and also of good.”

  Monty was flattered, and then frightened. He was an excellent raconteur and could tell ghost stories which held his audience of friends spellbound … for an evening’s entertainment and fellowship. That was hardly something to spread beyond his own circle, which did not include bishops of any faith, Catholic or Protestant. His friends were largely academics like Hank, or else students and artists of one sort or another.

  The bishop continued to smile. “You have in your possession at the moment a very unusual piece of ancient manuscript,” he continued. “It is part of an estate, and you will in due course offer it for sale, along with the rest of the books, which are insignificant in comparison. No doubt they are in good condition, but editions of them can be obtained in any decent bookshop. The scroll is unique. But then you know that already.” His eyes never moved from Monty’s face.

  Monty was colder, as if someone had opened a door onto the night. Any idea of denying his knowledge melted away. He had to swallow a couple of times before he could speak, and even then his voice sounded a little high-pitched.

  “Something as unusual as the scroll will have to wait for Mr. Williams.” It sounded like an excuse, even though it was perfectly true. “I imagine you would like it verified as well. It looks old, but no expert has examined it yet, so I have no idea of price. Actually, we don’t even know what it is.”

  The bishop’s smile did not waver, but his eyes were sharp and cold. “It is an ancient and very evil document, Mr. Danforth. If it were to pass into the wrong hands and become known to others the damage it could do would be measureless. I assure you, whatever price an expert might put on it, should you take the path of demanding that price, the Church will meet it. We would hope, as a man of principle and goodwill, you would settle for its value in the market place for scrolls of its date and origin.”

  Monty’s hands were stiff, his arms covered in goosebumps. The bishop’s figure seemed to float in the air, to become darker, and then lighter, the edges to blur. This was ridiculous! He blinked and shook his head, then looked again, and everything was normal. An elderly bishop, perfectly solid and human, was standing near the door, still smiling at him, still watching him.

  Monty gulped. “The price doesn’t lie within my control, Your Grace, but I imagine Mr. Williams will be fair. I have never known him not to be otherwise.”

  “Do not put it up for auction, Mr. Danforth,” the bishop said gravely, the pleasantness disappeared from his expression as completely as a cloud passing across the sun robbed the land beneath of light. “It would be a very dangerous mistake, the extent of which I think might well be beyond your imagination, fertile as that is.”

  “I shall pass on your message to Mr. Williams,” Monty promised, but his voice lacked the firmness he wished.

  “Something suggests to me, Mr. Danforth, that I am not the only person to approach you on this subject,” the bishop observed. “I urge you, with all the power at my disposal, not to sell this scroll elsewhere, no matter what inducement might be offered you to do so.”

  Now Monty was annoyed. “You say ‘inducement’ Your Grace, as if I had been offered bribes. That is not so, and I do not care for your implication. That might be the case with people you usually deal with, but it is not so with this bookshop. Bribery does not work, and neither do threats.” The moment the words were out of his mouth fear seized him so tightly he found himself shaking.

  “Not threats, Mr. Danforth,” the bishop said in barely more than a whisper. “A warning. You are dealing with powers so ancient you cannot conceive their beginning, and in your most hideous nightmare you cannot think of their end. You are not a fool. Do not, in your ignorance and hubris, behave like one.” Then without adding any more, or explaining himself, he turned and went out of the door. His feet made no sound whatever on the floorboards beyond, nor did the street door click shut behind him.

  Monty did not move; in fact, he could not. His imagination soared over one thing after another and he seemed at once hot and cold. Clearly in the bishop’s mind the scroll had an even more immense power than Monty had already seen in his own inability to copy it by any mechanical means. Who had written it and when? Was it ancient, or a more modern hoax? Obviously it held some terrible secret, almost certainly to do with the Church. To do with greed? The Catholic Church at least had treasures beyond imagining. Or was it personal sin, or mass abuse of the type only too well known already, but involving someone of extraordinary importance? Bribery, violence, even murder? Or some challenge to a doctrine people dared not argue or question?

  The possibilities raged through his mind and every one of them was frightening.

  At last he stood up, a little wobbly at first, his limbs too long cramped, went over to the telephone, and tried to get Roger Williams again. He let it ring twenty times. There was no answer. He hung up, and called instead the young man who looked after opening the shop in Roger’s absence and told him that he would not be in the next day.

  Monty drove to the village where Williams had his house. The countryside was silent in the morning sun, untroubled by rush hour traffic. He passed through gentle fields, mostly flat land. Much of it was agricultural; here and there sheep grazed, heads down.

  He was turning over in his mind exactly how to explain to Roger the sense of evil he had felt from both the old man, and then perhaps even more from the bishop who had seemed at once benign and dangerous. Or was it Monty’s own imagination that was at the heart of it, coupled with his technical incompetence in not being able to copy the scroll?

  But Hank couldn’t copy it either. Hank was absent-minded at times, and he had a dry and odd sense of humour, but he was never incompetent.

  He glanced up at a fi
eld of crops, and saw beyond it a sight that made his heart lurch. The rich, dark earth was littered with human skulls—thousands of them, as if a great army had been slaughtered and their corpses left in the open to rot as a perpetual reminder of death.

  His hands slipped on the steering wheel and the car careered over the road, slewed to one side and finished up on the verge, only a foot from the drainage ditch. Another fourteen inches and he would have broken the axle. He drew in gasps of breath. His whole body was shaking and he was drenched with sweat.

  Then he steeled himself to look at the field again. He saw white sheep turnips in the mud and weeds, their skull-like surfaces mounded above the soil.

  What on earth had he seen for that awful moment? A vision of Armageddon?

  He put the car back into gear and backed out very slowly, then sat, still shaking, until he could compose himself and drive the last mile or so to Roger’s house. He pulled in the drive and stopped. Stiffly he climbed out of the car, still a little shaky, and went to the front door. He rang the bell and there was no answer. Normally he might have waited, perhaps gone to the pub for a coffee or a beer, and returned later. But today it was too urgent. He tried the door and found it unlocked.

  Inside the hall there was a harsh smell of smoke, as if Roger had burned a pan, or even a whole meal.

  “Roger!” he called at the foot of the stairs.

  There was no answer, and he went up, beginning to fear that perhaps Roger was more seriously ill than he had supposed. He knocked on the bedroom door and when there was still no answer, he pushed it open.

  He stepped back, gasping, hand over his mouth. Now the silence was hideously plain. What was left of Roger’s body lay stiff and black on the remains of the bed, charred mattress, blackened carpet beneath it. The whole room was stained with smuts and soot as if some brief but terrible fire had raged here, consuming all in its path, and then gone out.

  Monty fumbled his way back down the stairs to the telephone and called the police.

  They came from the nearest small town, taking only twenty minutes to get there. They asked Monty to wait.

  It was nearly two hours before a grim-faced sergeant from the county town told him that they believed it had been arson, quick and lethal. They asked him a great many more questions, including some about the bookshop, Roger’s personal life, and also to account very precisely for his own whereabouts all the previous day. To his great relief he was able to do so.

  Then with their permission he drove back to Cambridge and went to see Roger’s solicitor, both to inform him of Roger’s death, and to ask for instructions regarding the bookshop, for the time being. He was stunned, grieved and too generally disconcerted even to think about his own future.

  “I’m afraid it falls on you, Mr. Danforth,” Mr. Ingles told him gravely. “The only family Mr. Williams had is a niece in Australia. I can try to get in touch with her, but I already know from Mr. Williams that the young woman is something of an explorer, and it could be a period of time before we can obtain any instructions from her. In the meantime you are named as Mr. Williams’ successor in the running of the business. Did he not inform you of that?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry—by the look on your face, clearly he did not. I do apologize. However there is nothing I can do about it now.”

  Monty was appalled. The scroll! He couldn’t possibly make the decision on the sale of that!

  “When can you find this woman?” he said desperately. “How long? Can’t the Australian police or somebody get in touch with her? Doesn’t she have responsibilities? A telephone? An email address? Something!”

  “I dare say we will find her within a few weeks, Mr. Danforth,” the solicitor said soothingly. “Until then, I advise that you just run the business as usual.”

  Monty felt as if one by one the walls were falling down and leaving him exposed to the elements of violence and darkness and there was no protection left.

  “You don’t understand!” He could hear the hysteria rising in his voice but he could not control it. “I have an ancient scroll in the last shipment, and two people are wanting it. I have no idea what it’s worth, or which one to sell it to!”

  “Can’t you get an expert to value it?” Inglis said, his silver eyebrows raised rather high.

  “No, I can’t, not if it’s worth what the two bidders so far are implying. I don’t know what it is … it’s …”

  “You’re upset, Mr. Danforth,” Ingles said soothingly. “Roger’s death has distressed you, very naturally. I’m sure when you’ve had a day or two to think about it, or a good night’s sleep at least, you’ll know what to do. Roger had a very high opinion of you, you know.”

  At any other time Monty would have been delighted to hear that; right now it was only making things worse. He could see in Ingles’ face that already he was thinking of Monty as incompetent and possibly wondering why on earth Roger had thought well of him.

  “The Church wants it,” he said aloud.

  “Then sell it to them, at whatever price an impartial assessor considers to be fair,” Inglis replied, rising to his feet.

  How could Monty explain the power the old man had exerted, the extraordinary emotions in his face that Monty could not ignore. Put into words it sounded absurd.

  “I’ll get an assessment,” was all he could think of to say.

  Ingles smiled. “Good. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

  Monty did not get home until late, and the following day was taken up with matters of business at the shop. There was a great deal of paperwork to be attended to, access to bank accounts, dry but very necessary details.

  In the evening Monty went to his favourite pub to have supper in familiar and happy surroundings. He had called Hank to join him, but Hank had not yet returned home and was not answering his mobile, so Monty was obliged to eat alone.

  He had a supper that should have been delicious: freshly cooked cold pork pie with sharp, sweet little tomatoes, then homemade pickle with Caerphilly cheese on oatcakes, and a glass of cider. He barely tasted it.

  The setting sun was laying a patina of gold over the river bank and the trees were barely moving in the faint breath of wind beyond the wide glass windows. Monty was looking towards the west when he saw the man walking across the grass towards him, up from the riverside path. He seemed to have the light behind him as if he had a halo, a sort of glow to his very being.

  To Monty’s surprise the man came in through the door and across the room straight towards him, as if they knew each other. He stopped beside Monty’s table.

  “May I join you, Mr. Danforth?” he said quietly. “We have much to talk about.” Without waiting for the reply, he pulled out the second chair and sat down. “I do not need anything to eat, thank you,” he went on, as if Monty had offered him something.

  “I have nothing to talk about with you, sir,” Monty said a little irritably. “We are not acquainted. I have had a very long day. One of my close friends has just died tragically. I would prefer to finish my dinner alone, if you please.” He was aware of sounding rude, but he really did not care.

  “Ah, yes,” the man said sadly. “The death of poor Mr. Williams. Yet another victim of the powers of darkness.”

  “He was burned to death,” Monty said with sudden anger and a very real and biting pain at the thought. “Fire is hardly a weapon of darkness!”

  The man was handsome, his face highbrowed, his eyes wide and blue, filled with intelligence. “I was speaking of the darkness of the mind, Mr. Danforth, not of the flesh. And fire has been one of its weapons since the beginning. We imagine it destroys evil, somehow cleanses. We have burned wise women and healers in the superstitious terror that they were witches. We have burned heretics because they dared to question our beliefs. We have burned books because the knowledge or the opinions in them frightened us and we did not wish them to spread. And pardon me for bringing it back to your mind, but you have seen the results of fire very recently. Did you find it cleansing?”

&
nbsp; In spite of himself Monty’s mind was filled with the stench of burning and the sight of Roger’s charred and blackened body on what was left of the bed. It made him feel sick, as though the food he had just eaten were revolting.

  “Who are you and what do you want?” he said harshly.

  “I am a scholar,” the man replied. “I am someone who could add to the world’s knowledge, without judgment as to who should know what, and who should be permitted to conceal truth because they do not agree with it, or have decided that this person or that one could find it difficult or uncomfortable. I would force no one, but allow everyone.”

  “What do you think is in it?” Monty asked curiously.

  “A unique testimony from the time of Christ,” the scholar replied. “One that may verify our beliefs—or blow them all apart. It will be a new truth—or a very old one”

  Monty already knew what he was going to say, but he asked anyhow.

  “And why do you approach me at a time of grief and interrupt my supper?”

  “Actually you have finished your supper,” the man indicated Monty’s empty plate with a smile on his finely sculpted face. “But I find it hard to believe that you do not already know why I have come. I wish to buy from you the scroll, at whatever price you believe to be fair. I would ask you to give it to the world, if I thought that would prevail upon you, but I know that you have some responsibility to the estate of which it is presently a part. And please do not tell me that it is not within your power. With Mr. Williams’ most unfortunate death, it is more than within it, it is your obligation.”

  Monty felt the sweat break out on his brow in spite of the closing in of the evening, now that the sun had definitely faded.

  “You are not the only person seeking to buy it,” he answered.

  “Of course not,” the scholar agreed with amusement. “If I were, I would begin to doubt its authenticity. The Church, at the very least, will bid high for it. But surely money is not your only consideration? That would disappoint me very much, Mr. Danforth. I had thought far more highly of you than that.”