The Scroll Read online

  “I have not yet been able to get anyone in to verify what it is,” Monty prevaricated. “It is impossible to put a price on it.”

  “When you have verified it, it will still be impossible,” the scholar responded. “But you are being disingenuous. I think you have at least an educated guess as to what you have. And I assure you it is what you believe it to be.”

  “I have no beliefs as to what it is,” Monty insisted angrily.

  The scholar’s face was filled with awe, his eyes almost luminous in the waning light. “It is the lost testament of Judas Iscariot,” he said so quietly his voice was barely audible. “We have known of its existence for centuries. It has been hunted by all manner of people, each with his own reasons either to hide it or to make it known.”

  So it was true. Monty sat on the familiar river bank in the English twilight and thought of Jerusalem two thousand years ago, of betrayal and sacrifice, of blood, pain, ordinary human feet trudging in the dust on a journey into immortality. He thought of faith, and grief, and human love.

  “Is it?” he asked.

  “I think you know that, Monty,” the scholar answered. “It must be given to the world. Mankind has a right to know what is in it—a different story, or the one we all expect. And in simple morality, does not the accused have a right to testify?”

  The thought whirled in Monty’s head, and he found no words on his tongue. The enormity of it was too great. Little wonder he could not photocopy it!

  The scholar leaned across the table closer to him. “You would be a benefactor to justice, Monty,” he said, unable to keep the urgency out of his voice. “An honest man, a true scholar who sought the truth above all emotional or financial interest, a man of unsoiled honesty.”

  For a moment Monty was overwhelmed by temptation. He drew in his breath, and then he remembered the old man with his granddaughter, and the promise he had made him. Why did he want it? He was the only one who had given no reason. He remembered again the knowledge of time and pain in his eyes.

  “I will consider it,” he said to the scholar in front of him. “If you leave me an address I will be in touch with you. Now please leave me to have another glass of cider and a piece of cake.”

  Actually he did not bother with more cider, or the cake. He paid his bill and left. As soon as he was in his car he tried Hank again on his cell phone. This time Hank answered.

  “I must see you immediately,” Monty said before even asking how Hank was or what he was doing. “Please come to the bookshop. I’ll wait for you.”

  “Are you alright?” Hank said anxiously. “You sound terrible. What’s happened?”

  “Just come to the bookshop,” Monty repeated. “Ring the bell. I’ll let you in.”

  Half an hour later Monty and Hank were sitting at the table in Monty’s workroom with the scroll open in front of them.

  “Who was this scholar?” Hank said gravely. “He must have given you a name.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Monty replied. “Like the old man with his granddaughter, and the bishop, or whatever he was, they all knew about this,” he glanced at the scroll. “And my name, and where to find me. But I’ve told no one, except you. I didn’t even have a chance to tell Roger.”

  Hank looked at the scroll again, lifting up his glasses to peer beneath them and see it more intensely. He was silent for so long that Monty became restless. He was about to interrupt him when Hank sat back at last.

  “I’ve been swatting up a bit on Aramaic,” he said, his voice quiet and strained, lines of anxiety deeper in his face than usual, perhaps exaggerated by the artificial light. “I can only make out a few words clearly. I’m not really very good. It’s a long way from mathematics, but I’ve always been interested in the teachings of Christ—just as a good man, perhaps morally the greatest.”

  “And …?” Monty’s own voice quivered.

  Hank’s face lit with a gentle smile. “And I have no special illumination, Monty. I can make out a few words, but they seem ambiguous, capable of far more than one interpretation. There are several proper names and I’m almost sure one of them is ‘Judas’. But there is so much I don’t know that I couldn’t even guess at the meaning. It isn’t a matter of missing a subtlety. I could omit a negative and come with a completely opposite interpretation.”

  “But could he be correct … the scholar?” Monty insisted. “Could it be the lost testimony of Judas Iscariot?”

  “It could be a testimony of anyone, or just a letter,” Hank replied. “Or it could be a fake.”

  “No it couldn’t,” Monty said with absolute certainty. “Touch it. Try to photograph it. It’s real. Even you can’t deny that.”

  Hank chewed his lip, the lines in his face deepening even more. “If it is what the scholar says, that would explain why the bishop is so anxious to have it, and perhaps destroy it. Or at the very least keep it hidden.”

  “Why? Surely it would make religion, Christianity in particular, really hot news again.”

  “If it confirms what they have taught for two thousand years,” Hank agreed. “But what if it doesn’t?”

  “Like what?” Monty asked, then immediately knew the answer. It was as if someone were slowly dimming all the lights everywhere, as far as the eye could see, as far as the imagination could stretch.

  Hank said nothing.

  “You mean a fake crucifixion?” Monty demanded. “No resurrection?” Then he wished he had not even said the words. “That would be awful. It would rob millions of people of the only hope they have, of all idea of heaven, of a justice to put right the griefs we can’t touch here.” He swallowed painfully. “Of ever seeing again those we love … and those who didn’t have a chance here …”

  “I know,” Hank said softly. “That is a belief I would never force on others, even if I hold it myself. I would be inclined to give it to Prince of the Church, and let him burn it.”

  “Book burning? You, Hank?” Monty said incredulously.

  “If I had to choose between truth, or what seems to be truth, and kindness … then I think I might choose kindness,” Hank said gently. “There are too many ‘shorn lambs’ I wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Temper the wind to the shorn lamb,” Monty said in a whisper. “And could you do it without even knowing what the scroll said?”

  “That’s the rub,” Hank agreed. “We don’t know what’s in it. It might not be that at all. Do you remember what the Bible says Christ said to Judas? ‘Go and do what thou must’?”

  Monty stared at him.

  Hank looked at the scroll. “If there were no betrayal then there would have been no trial, therefore no crucifixion, and no resurrection. Is it possible that Judas did only what he had to, or there would have been no fulfilment of the great plan?”

  Monty was speechless, his mind whirling, his thoughts out of control.

  “But that would spoil the simplicity of the damnation that Christendom has always placed on Judas,” Hank went on. “It would all suddenly become terribly real, and fearfully complex, much too much to be shared with the whole world, most of whom like their religion very simple. Good and evil. Black and white. No difficult decisions to be made. We don’t like difficult decisions. For two thousand years we have been told what to think, and we’ve grown used to it. And make no mistakes, Monty, if this goes to anyone except the Prince of the Church, it will be on the Internet the day after, and everyone will know.”

  “The Churchman is obvious,” Monty agreed. “Anyone can see why he wants it, and I can’t entirely disagree. And I can see why the scholar wants it, regardless of what it destroys or who it hurts. But who is the old man? Why does he want it, and how did any of them know it exists, and that I have it?”

  “What did you say his name was?” Hank asked. “He was the only one who gave you a name, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes. Judson Garrett.”

  Hank stood motionless. “Judson Garrett? Say it again, Monty, aloud. Could it possibly be …?” He stared at the scroll. “Lock
it up, Monty. I don’t know if it will do any good, but at least try to keep it safe.”

  Quite early the next morning Monty received a phone call from the police to tell him that it was now beyond question that Roger Williams had been murdered. They asked him if he would come down to the local station at his earliest convenience, preferably this morning. There were several issues with which he could help them.

  “Of course,” he replied. “I’ll be there in a couple of hours.”

  He was met by a very pleasant policewoman, no more than in her mid-thirties. She introduced herself as Sergeant Tobias.

  “Sorry about this, Mr. Danforth,” she apologized straight away. “Coffee?”

  “Er … yes, please.” It seemed discourteous to refuse, and he would welcome something to do with his hands. It might make him appear less nervous. Had she seen how tense he was, how undecided as to what to tell her?

  “You said Roger was murdered,” he began as soon as they were sitting down in her small office. If that were so, why was a mere sergeant dealing with it, and a young woman? It did not sound as if they regarded it as important.

  “Yes,” she said gravely. “There is no question that the fire was deliberately set. And Mr. Williams was struck on the head before the fire started. I thought you’d like to know that because it means he almost certainly didn’t suffer.”

  For a moment Monty found it difficult to speak. He had refused even to think of what Roger might have felt.

  “Thank you,” he said awkwardly. “Why? I mean … do you know why anyone would kill him?”

  “We were hoping that you could help us with that. We have found no indication of any personal reason at all. And the fact that the house was pretty carefully searched, but many very attractive ornaments left, some of considerable value, not to mention all the cutlery, which incidentally is silver and quite old, suggests it was not robbery. All the electronic things were left too, even a couple of very expensive mobile phones and ipods, very easily portable.”

  Monty shook his head, as if trying to get rid of the idea. “Nobody could have hated Roger like that. Maybe it was people high on something?”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But it was very methodical and well done. The search was meticulous, and nothing was broken or tossed around.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  She smiled a little bleakly. “Marks in the dust,” she answered. “Not just here and there, as he might have pulled books out himself since anyone last dusted. They were on every shelf, all recent. What does your bookshop deal in, Mr. Danforth? What would your most expensive item be?”

  Now the cold ate through him and the taste of the coffee was bitter in his mouth. There was only one possible answer to that, unless he were to lie to her. That thought was born in his mind, and died.

  “Usually just a rare book, sometimes a manuscript or original folio, quite a lot of first editions, of course. They can fetch thousands, even tens of thousands. Just occasionally we get an old manuscript, possibly illuminated.”

  She looked at him steadily. “And at the moment?” she prompted.

  He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “At the moment we have an old manuscript which came in the bottom of a crate of pretty ordinary books, from an estate sale.”

  “Old?” she asked. “What do you call ‘old’?”

  What would she know about books? Probably nothing at all. World War II would be ancient history to her.

  “Mr. Danforth?” she prompted.

  “Possibly the time of Christ,” he answered, feeling a little melodramatic.

  Her interest was instant and intense. “Really? In what language? Latin? Hebrew? Aramaic?”

  “I think it’s Aramaic,” he replied. “It seems to be important, because I have had three people asking for it already, and I haven’t even had it authenticated yet.”

  “But you advertised it?” she said with a quick note of criticism in her voice.

  “No,” he answered. “No, I didn’t. I don’t know how anybody knew of it. And I don’t know whether it is Aramaic or not. I have a friend who knows a little, just words here and there, and that’s what he thinks it is. I still need an expert.”

  “Have you any idea at all what it is about?” she pressed. “What is it written on? Parchment, vellum? How long is it?”

  He withdrew a little bit. “Why do you want to know?”

  She smiled, and her expression was gentle and full of pride. “My father is Eli Tobias. He is an expert in ancient Aramaic scripts. We think Mr. Williams was killed for a rare book of some sort. That is why they put me onto the case.”

  He sighed. “You’re right. Three different men have come to me and offered anything I want if I will sell it to them. I can’t even photocopy the thing. It’s as if it were … possessed.”

  “Then you need an expert to look at it,” she replied. “Perhaps more than one. Did any of these men suggest what it is, or why they want it so much?”

  He repeated to her what each of the men had said and she listened to him without interrupting.

  “Keep it safe, Mr. Danforth,” she said after he had finished and stared at her over the cold coffee. “We shall send two experts tomorrow, or the day after. I think we have found the reason poor Mr. Williams was burned to death. Please … please be very careful.”

  Monty promised to do so, and went out into the street a little shakily. He drove back to Cambridge and worked in the shop until late afternoon. He finished cataloguing the last books of the Greville estate and decided to go home for supper, and then perhaps telephone Hank and tell him the latest news. It would be comforting to speak to him. His sanity was like a breath of clean air, blowing away the stale nonsense that had collected in his mind.

  He was surprised to find when he went outside that it had been raining quite heavily, and he had not noticed. The gutters were full and in places slurping over. Thank goodness it had stopped now or he would have been soaked. The sky was darkening in the east, and the red sky to the west promised a good day tomorrow, if you believe the old tales of forecasting.

  He turned the corner and the sunlight struck him in the face. He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. The shock took him like a physical blow. The whole tarmac surface was covered with blood. It lay in pools, shining and scarlet. It ran gurgling in the gutters.

  He was paralyzed by the sheer horror of it.

  A cyclist came racing around the corner, skidded, slewed across the road and hit him, knocking him over. He was bruised and his skin torn, his chest for a moment unable to move, to draw in breath. With difficulty he gasped in air at last and straightened very slowly to his knees, dizzy and aching.

  An old lady was hurrying towards him, her face creased with concern.

  “Are you alright?” she asked anxiously. “Stupid boys. They’re going much too fast. Didn’t even stop. Are you injured?” She offered her hand to help him up, but she looked too frail to take any of his weight.

  He stood upright, surprised to find that apart from being thoroughly wet from the gutter, he was actually not damaged. His jacket sleeves and his shirt cuffs were sodden with rainwater, dirty grey, his trousers the same. There was a tiny red smear of blood on his palm where he had scratched it.

  “Yes, I think I’m all right, thank you,” he replied. “I was standing in the way, I think. Just … staring …” There was nothing left of the images of blood, just an ordinary asphalt road with puddles of rain gleaming in the last of the sunset. He wouldn’t tell Hank about this. As he had always said, most supernatural phenomena were just over-excited imaginations painting very human fears onto perfectly normal situations.

  Nevertheless when he saw Hank later on, having washed, changed his clothes and had a very good supper, he found him also unusually concerned.

  “Can you work out why we can’t photograph this scroll yet?” Monty asked as they sat with late coffee and an indulgence of After Eight mints.

  “No,” Hank said candidly. He g
ave a slightly rueful smile. “For once, logic eludes me. I can’t think of any reasonable answer. I imagine there’s an explanation as to how those three men knew of the scroll at all, when you didn’t advertise it. I suppose since they knew you had it, it wasn’t a great leap to track down poor Roger. Monty …”

  “What?”

  “We have to settle this issue straight away. I don’t think I’m being alarmist, but if they’d kill Roger for it, they aren’t going to accept a polite delay from you.”

  The increasing darkness that had been growing in Monty’s mind now suddenly took a very specific shape. Heat raced through him as if he felt flames already.

  “I’ve no idea what price to put on it,” he said desperately. “I wish I’d never found the thing. Sergeant Tobias said she’d have her father come and look at it some time this week. What if they won’t wait? Or won’t pay what he says it’s worth? I suppose I should tell the Greville Estate solicitors, shouldn’t I?”

  “No,” Hank replied after a moment’s thought. “From what you told me, Roger bought the books as a job lot at auction. They belong to his estate, not the Grevilles. But you’re right, I don’t think you can wait until a valuation is put on the scroll. That could take quite a while, especially if it really is what the scholar claims it is. That would actually make it almost beyond price.”

  “Then what the hell can I do?” Monty demanded. “Give it to the British Museum?”

  Hank bit his lip. “Do you think the bishop, or Mr. Garrett will allow you to do that? Who do you think killed Roger?”

  Monty shut his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “One of them, I suppose. Hank, what can I do?”

  Hank sat for a long time without answering.

  Monty waited.

  Finally Hank spoke, slowly and very quietly. “I don’t believe we can wait, Monty. I don’t know what this scroll is, but I do know it has great power. Whatever is in the scroll itself, or in what various men believe of it, that power is real, and it is very dangerous. Roger is dead already. I believe that we need to end the matter long before any experts can run their tests and verify it. For a start, I don’t think the bishop, or whoever he is, is going to allow that to happen. His whole purpose in buying the scroll is to destroy it, to make sure that mankind never gets to know what is written in it—expert, scholar or ordinary man in the street, or more importantly to him, perhaps, man-in-the-pew.”