The Malice Box Read online

  ‘The driver was a complete card, asking what we were up to heading up there at this time of night in the fog, nudge nudge, and asks if we know about the legend of the knight up there. We don’t, so he tells us. On any moonlit night, he says, if a warrior enters the ring of Wandlebury fort and calls out a certain phrase, a ghostly knight on a black horse will appear, and you’ll have to fight him for his steed.’

  ‘My partner claims to be a warrior of sorts, he’s Officer Training Corps in the Army, and the driver tells us the phrase. Knight to knight, come forth, he says. Don’t say it unless you’re serious. Joker.’

  ‘So we went up there and we’re dropped off in the car park,’ the knight went on. ‘It’s bloody desolate, it’s freezing, we’re looking for information boards or anything to solve the riddle and get out of there, and damsel here asks if I have a secret wishto freeze to deathon a Fenland hill, because she certainly doesn’t, and in any case who ever heard of a hill in the Fens, and I say, well I’ve always fancied a real swordfight with a real knight, Adam knows I fence, I’ve always wondered how good they were in the old days. So we walk into the ring and then we find this sign about the Godolphin Arabian. Has anyone heard of him?’

  They shook their heads. Adam beamed.

  ‘Inside the ring of Wandlebury fort there used to be a stately home, the Earl of Godolphin’s seat, demolished in the 1950s, but the stables are still there, people live in them. In the stables is buried perhaps the greatest sire of racehorses that ever lived, the Godolphin Arabian. Died 1753. Legendary beast, apparently. Sired Regulus, Lath, Cade, all outstanding racehorses or studs. One of three stallions that virtually created English thoroughbred racehorses.’

  He paused for a sip of beer and his partner took up the tale.

  ‘So we have the Arabian and the mounted knight and his ghostly steed from your clue, and we’ve ticked off the ring too. We haven’t got the chalk part, but we’re feeling pretty pleased… but we keep on walking, away from the stables, into the centre of the ring. It’s a big field. And in the middle this bloody fool shouts out the challenge.’

  ‘Knight to knight, come forth, just like that. I belted it out, for a laugh.’

  ‘And then…’

  He licked his lips. Took a long draught of his pint. ‘And then… there’s this fucking black horse there. Staring at me. Nostrils smoking. Steam rising off it, like it’s just finished galloping. Standing stock-still. Staring at me. I swear. Standing there in the fog. I have never been so scared in my life.’

  ‘Who did you pay to do it, Adam?’

  ‘Details, details. And so what is the answer?’

  ‘The answer is horse, you twisted sod.’

  Katherine spoke up, putting her hand on the damsel’s knee. ‘Did you see it?’

  ‘I saw something. Hard to say what I saw. It could have been a horse. There was something there. I was bloody scared.’

  ‘Horse from a field near by, must have escaped,’ the vicar said. ‘Either that or the two of you are winding us up.’

  Robert jotted some lines down and handed them to Katherine. ‘My good warlock says he thinks Adam paid two blokes from the village to put on a panto horse costume and stand up there till two silly buggers from the university showed up.’

  ‘We ran down to the car park like fools. Taxi driver thought it was the funniest thing he’d seen in years.’

  The knight insisted that the horse was there. ‘That much I’m certain of. Who did you pay?’

  ‘There was no knight?’ Adam paused. ‘I’ll have to get my money back.’

  ‘You sod!’

  Most of them laughed. The damsel let out a high-pitched sound between amusement and hysteria. A smile slowly crept on to the knight’s face too.

  ‘Special points for intrepidity are awarded to our knight and damsel,’ Adam said. ‘Now, please write the challenge of Gog Magog on your card.’

  Pencil-scratching ensued. Knight to knight, come forth.

  ‘That gives T, C, M and O,’ the knight called out.

  ‘Just a minute,’ the damsel interrupted. ‘What was the chalk, then? I think we got the rest.’

  ‘There is a great chalk figure cut into the hills up there, though it’s overgrown,’ Adam said. ‘It shows a great horse or horses being ridden by a giant goddess with three breasts. Some people think it’s ancient; others think the gentleman who uncovered it in the 1950s actually made it himself out of wishful thinking – there were old references to such figures, and he found it by bosing, which is jamming a big stick into the ground to find disturbed earth and chalk. On the other hand –’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, it is right on the ley line that also goes through Wandlebury fort, right by the Scott Polar Institute, and right through the Round Church, if you happen to believe in such things. There’s also said to be a golden chariot buried in the ring. It is a place of power, they say.’

  ‘It’s a place of bloody freezing fog, I’ll go that far,’ said the knight.

  Robert made a note to himself of the two new words he’d learned in the course of the evening. Vulning. Bosing.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Adam. ‘It is almost ten o’clock. We are about God’s work, forming a new Society. The penultimate challenge for this evening is to find its motto, hidden in the fifteen letters you have all just extracted with your keys. Find the three words that begin O… V… A.’

  ‘Is it in Englishor Latin?’

  ‘The latter. Each of your teams has someone who studied Latin at least to O-level.’

  There was fevered scribbling and conferring.

  ‘As you work, allow me to read you the constitution of the Society. The as yet nameless Society is a social club dedicated to the setting and solving of puzzles, matchmaking, non-frivolous amusement and the pursuit of unconventional wisdom through playful exploration. Its methods draw on conventions such as the blind date, the scavenger hunt, spy fiction and the masked ball. Membership is by invitation only.’

  ‘You don’t have a name yet?’

  ‘We will guess the name. It will come from your adventures. A combination of what you discovered.’

  ‘Shut up and let us think, then.’

  Robert and Katherine huddled. From the Scott Institute: I A R A N O I. From the Round Church: M N I V. From the Wandlebury Ring: T C M O.

  Robert drew them in a circle, Katherine in a square, each following their own crossword-puzzle technique.

  Katherine whispered in his ear: ‘Redemption… self-sacrifice… holy warrior… how much Latin did you do?’

  Robert jotted in response: ‘Warrior fights to win. Forgiveness conquers sin. No greater love than this…’

  Suddenly he had it. He grabbed her by the shoulders and squeezed her. Scribbled furiously in capital letters. Showed her.

  ‘Yes!’ she shouted, raising her hand in the air. ‘Bingo!’

  Something of a crowd had gathered round to see what on earththey were up to.

  Adam looked at his watch. Robert checked his own and saw it was ten o’clock. He shouted, in unison with Katherine: ‘OMNIA VINCIT AMOR!’

  ‘Ohhhhhhhhhh damn,’ said the vicar, throwing his pen down in disgust.

  ‘Love Conquers All,’ Katherine hooted. ‘Love Conquers All.’

  She grabbed Robert’s hands and squeezed them. ‘You’re my eternal hero! Love Conquers All.’

  Adam was laughing so hard with delight that Robert thought he would levitate, clapping his hands and dancing a merry jig.

  ‘Well done, Katherine Rota and Robert Reckliss,’ he boomed. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, unmask yourselves.’

  Robert struggled again with the mask, managing with Katherine’s help only to slide it down off his face so it dangled around his neck. She smiled.

  ‘Hi, handsome.’

  Her own she got off easily. She ran over and kissed Adam and held him in a long hug that Robert had been expecting for himself. Then she came and gave him one too. She was adorable. A blue-eyed imp.

&
nbsp; The knight revealed himself as a third-year natural scientist from Downing. The damsel was a second-year medic at Emmanuel. Vicar and tart declared themselves to be a third-year geographer from Jesus and a most untartlike fourth-year linguist from Newnham, whom Robert recognized also as an actress from a show at the ADC theatre. There was applause, followed by more drinks.

  Adam stood. ‘Now the final challenge. What is the creature that combines all three of your explorations? What have you created in your exertions? After that creature we shall name our Society.’

  The Newnham lady spoke. ‘The ends of the earth, unknown territories where magical creatures dwell… horse-like, with healing powers born of suffering… redemptive but with a strong sexual charge… am I the only one getting this?’

  The knight had had enough. ‘Um… Pegasus?’

  Robert couldn’t help taking the piss. ‘Rhinoceros?’

  Five people shouted at the same time: ‘Unicorn!’

  Thus was the Cambridge University Unicorn Society founded. Adam claimed to have abolished it, a few months later, when he graduated. But some say it lives on, in a different form, with the same aims and methods.

  New York, August 26, 2004

  Robert stood outside the address Adam had sent him hidden in the Malice Box and tried the keys in the street door. The second one opened it. The apartment was a fifth-floor walk-up, which earned Adam no special thanks, in a 1930s white-painted brick building of ‘railroad’ apartments: one room wide, long and thin, running front-to-back through the building like a railcar or a submarine. The stairs to the top floor were narrow, tightly wound, bowed in the middle by the weight of walkers. The most recent paint job was starting to flake. Robert trod on a used condom as he walked up.

  The other key opened the apartment.

  He’d had no idea Adam kept a New York pied-à-terre, or love nest, or whatever he called it. The place was not set up in any great luxury, certainly not the kind of place one would take a mistress, Robert imagined.

  But there was a computer, sitting atop a cheap black desk against the far wall as he entered. And computers took passwords.

  The power was on. He dabbed the keyboard and got a prompt saying the screen was locked. Control alt delete. The username Adam was already there. He punched in the word on the slip of paper: vitriol. The Word document came up immediately.

  Hello, Robert,

  Long time no see, to coin a phrase. Very sorry it’s been so long.

  I never write, I never call. Terribly sorry.

  I won’t bury the lead any further. I need to ask you to do some things, and they will seem rather strange. Some may be dangerous; others will take you to areas of life you might not ordinarily be familiar with. If you do them, you will help prevent a dreadful act from being visited upon us all. Something utterly hellish. You may also save my life.

  It won’t all be bad, and some of it will be right up your street, I should think, but some of it will be quite harrowing.

  Why should you not bin this letter right now?

  Because I pray you trust me. Because you and Katherine will be among the victims if you do nothing. Because you are one of the few people in the world who can stop it.

  You’ll need to begin this quite soon, and, once you begin, there’ll be no stopping until it’s over. Once again, I’m very sorry, but it’s not just my wretched neck on the line. It’s everyone’s.

  I’ve got in rather deep in something, to tell you the truth, and I don’t know now how to get out. I may not be able to.

  You’ll need an internet-capable phone, the kind that takes pictures and transmits them from where you are and can handle instant messaging and Google searches and that kind of thing. One is provided, if you look in the cardboard box up to your right. I think it’s called a Quad Plus, or something like that. It’ll do GPS and maps too. I took good advice – it’s a fantastic device.

  You’ll need a map of New York, Manhattan mainly, with the subways and bus routes showing, in case the technology fails you. Sometimes a pencil and ruler are a better bet.

  Remember your Boy Scout days? Think of it as a scavenger hunt, with all the ugliness those two words contain if we take them separately and literally.

  But most of all you’ll need your good, stout heart, Robert, and guts, and your wits about you. There’ll be clues and friends along the way, but enemies too, I’m afraid.

  We must visit the secret chambers below the city, and the secret gardens and platforms above it, and the hidden places in between. We must also visit the secret places of the heart.

  Let’s call part of it a walking tour, and part of it a bit of self-help, and part of it a kind of meditation primer. We’re going to need to get you up to speed pretty quickly, you see. Think of it as a crashcourse in certain matters spiritual, mental and carnal. If you can’t pass it, you’ll be of no use to anyone and an awful lot of people will die. Hot in here?

  Cheers

  Adam

  Suspend disbelief, Horace had asked of him.

  The letter was dated August 14. The first anniversary of the Blackout. He printed out a copy and closed the file.

  There were no other recently opened files under ‘Documents’. Clicking through the other programmes, he launched Explorer and Netscape browsers, found nothing in the bookmarks, then opened up America Online. There was just one screen name: AdamHDiiii. He entered vitriol as the password. It worked.

  AdamHD 1111 had no mail, no old mail, no sent mail, no favourite places. But the Buddy List showed 0/1 – someone Adam chatted with regularly, or wanted to remember. Whoever it was, they weren’t online. Robert looked up the name. TerriCi 1111. And the user profile:

  Name: Terri, 22/F

  Location: Between Hades and earth. Eliot likes me

  ‘throbbing between two lives’

  Gender: Female

  Marital Status: Open. To myself, to the divine

  Hobbies and Interests: Vaticination. Seduction. Speaking

  the language of the birds, the green language

  Favourite Gadgets: Myself; my eyes

  Occupation: Seer, guide, lover

  Personal Quote:

  Two snakes I spy, entwined in the act of love

  One I scotch, the female, and am myself made woman

  For seven years

  Till the same snakes I spy again, again lost in love’s act

  The male I scotch, and am myself made male again

  So the seasons turn

  Her AOL homepage had a picture of a headless but otherwise shapely female mannequin in a shop window, a snake on her black dress, a writhing mass of serpents behind her. In short, some deeply weird shit.

  Robert looked inside the cardboard box Adam had indicated. Inside was a silver-and-grey device like a chunkier Treo or Palm Pilot, with a large screen. It nestled comfortably in his hand when he picked it up, despite its weight. There were also a few accessories: a charger, what looked like a foldable keyboard, an earpiece/microphone. He turned it on. It gave a beep and presented a startling array of icons. The GPS programme indicated the device had perhaps a dozen locations logged, all identified by three-figure numbers. He saw the battery was a little low and put it on to charge.

  He imagined himself talking to Adam as he puttered about the apartment:

  ‘This time I’ve crossed the line.’

  ‘You’ve really done it, Adam.’

  ‘This time I’m on the other side of the veil.’

  ‘You’ve pulled it off.’

  ‘I can’t get back.’

  ‘The Rope Trick.’

  ‘I really did it.’

  ‘The vanishing trick. Poof! Gone from the face of the earth.’

  ‘You shouldn’t follow. You mustn’t.’

  ‘I always feared you’d do it.’

  ‘Always knew I could.’

  ‘Adam Hale! Climbed the rope to the top…’

  ‘I’m scared. I’ve met some people. Serious people. I don’t think they’ll let me come back
.’

  ‘It begins with a letter.’

  ‘Hello, Robert.’

  ‘Hello, Robert, it says. The world’s about to end. Remember those dreams you’ve been having?’

  Robert sat and tried to solve the puzzle. What was Adam up to? Visiting Lawrence Hencott? Killing him? It didn’t make sense.

  But then the computer gave the sound of a door creaking open, and TerriCi 1111 was on line. Robert wondered what the hell to do. It was ridiculous, but his heart was hammering again.

  There was a trill. An instant-messaging window opened up on the screen. ‘Hey, baby,’ it said. From TerriCnii. She thought he was Adam. He hesitated. Should he pretend to be Adam or not? If he just said who he was, would she freak out and vanish?

  ‘Hi,’ he typed.

  The cursor blinked for half a minute. A minute. His mouth was dry. Did Adam never say ‘Hi’? Did they have a secret code? A lovers’ code? Unless I use the word ‘rhubarb’ assume I am captured?

  The sharp trill again.

  ‘I’ve been trying to reachyou, you crazy bastard… are you OK?’

  Here he was, more than twenty years on, being mistaken for Adam again. And, despite himself, he liked it. He liked the idea of being someone else for a few minutes. It was a vacation from pain. It was exciting. It was relief.

  ‘Yes. Tired.’

  ‘Where did you go?’

  Robert took a leap into the void. ‘I was right here in New York.’

  He could almost feel her thinking. The trill again.

  ‘Did you get everything done you needed to do?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘You’re not sure? Were there any difficulties?’

  ‘Hard to ever be sure, I guess. Then I went to see Hencott.’

  ‘Who?’

  Shit. Now how could he get out of this? She was his link to Adam. Or was it the other way round? He typed: ‘The goldmines guy? Lawrence Hencott?’

  ‘Oh, sorry. Yes. When did you see him?’

  ‘Yesterday, I think. I haven’t slept. I’m losing track of time.’ It occurred to him that she was hurt. ‘Sorry, I wanted to tell you where I was. But I had to see him first.’