The Malice Box Read online

  Decide.

  He needed more information, which meant meeting her.

  Adam had asked him for help, and he would not walk away.

  He made up his mind.

  He grabbed the Quad and checked its settings. He did a test of the camera, snapping a photograph of a ‘New York Skyline’ paperweight on Adam’s desk and posting it to the webpage at the first bookmark. Username AdamHD 1111 and a password were already loaded, he noted. He called up the webpage and confirmed it had gone through. He called up Waypoint 025. The street map on the Quad GPS screen showed a marker between Broadway and Church, near Fulton. He racked his memory, trying to recall what was there.

  He called Katherine. It went to her voicemail. ‘Hi, darling. I’m having a really screwed-up day. I may be late home. I’m fine, but I’m going to try to find out more about that thing Adam sent us.’ He wondered what else to say. ‘Call me when you can. I need to tell you about a couple of things.’

  Cambridge, March 1981

  Katherine, Adam and Robert went to Adam’s rooms in Nevile’s Court at Trinity, above the elegant north cloister where Newton had tried to measure the speed of sound in the seventeenth century by stamping his foot and timing the echo. They walked up one flight of stairs and entered a long dark corridor. Katherine led them, turning left towards Adam’s set of rooms at the far end.

  Something about the hand-painted names, white on black, at the foot of the staircase intrigued Robert. ‘Are you the only undergraduate on this staircase, Adam?’

  Everyone else seemed to be at least a Ph.D., if not an actual Fellow.

  ‘Yes it’s dreadful, isn’t it? You’ll hate the reason. Not very egalitarian I’m afraid.’

  ‘I was just curious.’

  Adam opened the door and ushered them inside. ‘It was my grandfather’s doing. He is quite esteemed hereabouts. Had a good war. Something to do with the SOE, intelligence and so on. Created a couple of scholarships, quite generous ones. The only condition was that any direct descendants who could get here on merit should be allowed to occupy his old rooms, if they wished.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘I did wish, naturally. It’s actually quite handy that they can’t take it away from me; otherwise they would have done so by now. I am not entirely in the good books of the Master. More of that anon.’

  The sitting room was huge, high-ceilinged, book-lined. The furnishings were old and expensive. It did not look like an undergraduate’s room at all.

  ‘You come from sucha different world,’ Robert said.

  ‘Don’t get judgemental on me now.’

  ‘I’m not. Just observing. Was your father here too?’

  A cloud crossed Adam’s face. ‘Dad? No. He was a little too thick.’

  ‘Adam and his father are estranged,’ Katherine said. ‘Adam is a little bit disinherited. It’s very dashing.’

  ‘Quite. Care for a drink? Red wine? Pimm’s? G and T?’

  They had both said he’d been chosen and that he was key to some enterprise. What on earth had they meant?

  Adam fussed with bottles and glasses as Katherine prowled the room. Robert plunked himself down in a beanbag.

  Father. Estranged. Disinherited. He had to ask her about her accent. It was very sexy.

  ‘Katherine, there’s something about your rs…’

  Adam and Katherine burst out laughing. He felt his face burning.

  ‘That didn’t come out right.’

  ‘You’re too sweet,’ Katherine said. ‘It’s OK, Robert. My mother was American, if that’s what you’re asking about. My grandmother was from California. She spent a lot of time over here during the war. I was brought up here. My dad’s a Brit, Anglo-Argentine to be exact. Wanted an English rose for a daughter, and that’s what he got.’

  She settled on the sofa and drew up her knees, cuddling herself dreamily. Robert leaned towards her. ‘So how long have you been writing this play? When do you plan to put it on?’

  Katherine’s eyes flickered towards Adam.

  ‘Most of last term and all of this,’ she said. ‘I wanted to write something to do with the history of science for my thesis, and I got into the Keynes papers thinking I’d find some correspondence that might help. Typical me. Once I started I couldn’t stop.’

  ‘This is Keynes the economist? John Maynard Keynes?’

  ‘The same. He bought all these papers of Newton’s at auction in 1936, so they wouldn’t fall back into private hands. Left them to King’s when he died.’

  ‘And you’ve done a lot of theatre?’

  ‘My first two years I practically lived at the ADC. This year I want to write. Adam and I have a pact.’

  Adam handed her a glass of red wine, a smile playing on his lips.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘We won’t sleep together, so we can write together.’

  ‘Kat, really,’ said Adam, reaching out to Robert with a gin and tonic. ‘Behave.’

  Adam discarded his false beard and turban and settled into a large armchair, surveying the two of them like a proud paterfamilias.

  Katherine stretched. ‘That’s why I said I’d do the blind date tonight, to help Adam foist me off. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Foist away, frankly.’

  ‘Then I thought he’d show up in disguise and ravish me and pretend he was someone else.’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint.’

  ‘You didn’t, Robert. You’ve been the perfect gentleman. Just what a girl would wish for. Will you walk me home tonight?’

  He couldn’t help checking Adam’s reaction. Studiously neutral.

  ‘I’d be delighted to.’

  ‘With regard to the play, I wanted to ask you a favour,’ Adam said. ‘We want to put it on on the lawn outside the front of Trinity.’

  ‘Where Newton’s Tree is?’

  ‘Yes, but not just because of that. In Newton’s day it was a walled garden, and his laboratory was inside it. His rooms were between the Great Gate and the chapel, on the first floor, so he could just walk out on to his veranda, down some stairs and into the garden. The laboratory was at the chapel end of the garden.’

  ‘Would they let you?’

  ‘Well, that’s where you come in. They wouldn’t let me, you see. There was some unpleasantness and misunderstanding last year about my borrowing some college punts – quite a few, actually – for a re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo on the river…’

  ‘That was a land battle, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Literal-mindedness will be the death of you, young Robert.’

  ‘So…’

  ‘So it occurred to me that you might like to be the producer of the play. Front for me with the Trinity authorities, certainly, but also help us put it on. Do the organizing.’

  ‘You don’t mind pretending to be Adam, do you?’

  He held Katherine’s gaze. Was he being insulted? Played with? He didn’t think so. He decided to risk it. See where it took him.

  ‘Not at all, in the right circumstances. But why me?’

  ‘I’m sure you’d be good at it, first of all. You exude trustworthiness and matter-of-factness and solidity. Is that how your friends back home think of you? I’m sure it is.’

  It was barely six months since Robert had left home, straight from the local grammar school, to take up his place at Trinity Hall. All that was solid and real in his life was there.

  ‘My friends back home would probably find this entire evening too pretentious for words, but I’ve found it enchanting so far. Yes, I’m good at organizing things. I’m thrilled to be asked. Thank you.’

  ‘Adam’s been watching you, you see.’ Katherine walked over behind Adam’s armchair and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘He said he’d found a diamond in the rough and he’d like to think of some way to give you a leg-up.’

  Robert’s pride flared. ‘A leg-up into what?’

  ‘Into this place,’ Adam said. ‘Into not being afraid to dream. Into not letting the chip on your shoulde
r or the mud on your boots hold you back from enjoying three years of unfettered wonder, whatever your friends back home think of it.’

  ‘I’m getting the hang of it. I don’t quite have your languid ease, I’m sure, but –’

  ‘You’ll do an excellent job, I have no doubt. Keep our feet on the ground. Make it happen. Think of me as a talent scout.’

  ‘Is this where I get asked to join m16?’

  Adam laughed. ‘Nothing so sinister. Though if you’re interested…’

  Robert turned to Katherine. ‘So you knew it was me all along?’

  ‘Oh, no, don’t think that.’ She seemed genuinely concerned. ‘I had no idea who Adam would send. He just promised it would be someone I might fancy. Seems a little bit kinky, I suppose. But I liked the idea. I could just as easily have thrown you out, though.’

  ‘I’d talked to Katherine about you and the play. But tonight was completely separate, I swear. What do you say, Robert? Will you do it?’

  ‘What do I need to do, to start with? Is there a copy of the play I can read?’

  ‘I suggest you go right to the top and contact the Master. Nothing like a spot of fresher chutzpah. As for the play –’

  ‘The first two acts are pretty much done,’ Katherine said. ‘We’re both a bit stuck on the third. The climax. There’s a fire, you see.’

  ‘A fire?’

  ‘The laboratory catches fire. Caught fire. In the winter of 1677/8. While Newton, rather uncharacteristically, was on a visit to the chapel. He didn’t hold much with what the Church had become.’

  ‘Bit hard to stage.’

  ‘Something was lost in the fire. Irreplaceable work. A candle fell on to some of his papers and a book was burned. Whatever was in it, he would never undertake the work again. Some people say it was mainly what we’d now call chemistry. Some people say it was less conventional than that.’

  Adam smiled. ‘He had a remarkable mind, Newton, everyone knows that. Some people even recognize now that he dabbled in alchemy, though they dismiss it as so muchnonsense.’

  ‘As they should,’ said Robert.

  ‘You might not think that if you’d seen what I’ve seen. Keynes didn’t get all the papers at that auction, you know. A German group bought some. My grandfather recovered them from the Nazis, during the war. One in particular, he brought back here to Trinity. He was its keeper, so to speak. As I am now.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you, old man. Not as yet, at least. One thing at a time. Katherine wants to know too. I can’t tell her either.’

  ‘Or won’t,’ said Katherine.

  ‘It’s a single document. It’s partly charred around the edges, looks like it was in a fire. I’m not sure I fully understand what it says, but I’m slowly learning.’

  ‘Is it here?’ Robert looked again around the room.

  ‘It’s in a safe place. Anyway. Kat and I have known eachother since last year. We met at a fancy-dress party, funnily enough.’

  ‘Let me guess. She was a witch and you were a warlock?’

  Katherine laughed. ‘You catch on quickly.’

  ‘An innocent little inside joke with Kat,’ Adam beamed. ‘Please forgive. So… when she told me about all this material she’d found, I put it to her that it wasn’t a thesis at all, that it was something she was much more uniquely equipped to create, given her background, that it needed something much more attuned to the subject matter. Since –’

  ‘Since theatre involves enchantment and suspension of disbelief, you said. Whereas academic theses largely do not. And you had suchgood ideas.’

  ‘So we started writing together. I have a kind of mentor myself, who sparked the idea in my mind. What if, he asked –’

  ‘What if Newton took the fire as a sign from God, in whom he undoubtedly fervently believed in his own heretical way, that he had taken his research down a forbidden path– it was in 1677, remember, before the Principia – and as a result changed course, and as a result of that–’

  ‘Created the world we now live in. What would the world be like now if he had continued down that lost path? What would the word “Newtonian” mean to us in that world, and how different would it be to what it means to us now?’

  ‘And,’ Katherine said, ‘what was in the burned papers? What discoveries did the lost book contain?’

  Robert shifted uncomfortably. It was all a little too esoteric for his taste. He tried to get them back on track. ‘On a practical note, what about the tree? And would you want to put up scaffolding for seats? Or just put chairs out on the lawn? What about damage to the grass?’

  ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘The tree’s right in the middle of the lawn. You can’t ignore it. Perhaps incorporate it somehow. Have him sit under it. Or cover it up and put a red light inside and make it a furnace for his lab. Scaffolding for seats would be expensive, and you’d have insurance to worry about. Depends how many people you expect to come and see it.’

  Katherine waved her empty wine glass in the air. ‘We thought the audience could be on two sides, south and east, roughly where the garden walls used to be. Tree in the middle. Like the Garden of Eden.’

  ‘The Tree of Knowledge, I take it.’

  Adam took a bottle over to Katherine and replenished her glass, glancing sideways at Robert. ‘Or the Tree of Life. Anyway, these are all good ideas. And I’m sure they could put down boards or something to protect the grass. Perhaps 200 people a night? I already feel like we’re in good hands.’

  Katherine sipped her wine, peeping over the top of her glass at Robert. ‘I was going to do some writing tonight. Would you like to help me?’

  This time Robert saw she’d annoyed Adam, who turned away from them and studied a bookcase.

  ‘I’m not sure writing’s my forte but –’

  ‘Katherine has some unusual writing techniques,’ Adam said, his voice as light as ever. ‘I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.’

  Katherine reached into her bag and produced a scrunched-up packet of cigarettes. ‘God, I’ve been trying not to all night, but do you mind if I do?’

  Robert suddenly wished he smoked. He looked around for matches, but Adam beat him to it, leaning towards her with a lit matchhe seemed to have produced from nowhere. Katherine pulled his hand towards her and held it steady. She kept holding it for several seconds after her cigarette was lit, smiling saucily at Adam till the match was almost burned down. He lowered his head and blew it out, holding her gaze throughout. For a moment it seemed to Robert that he wasn’t in the room at all.

  He coughed.

  ‘So… what are you both thinking of doing next year?’

  The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. He could have kicked himself. Asking people in their final year about the future was almost guaranteed to kill a conversation, or an evening, stone dead. He’d been doing so well, and then out popped the boy from the Fens.

  Katherine looked for a moment as though she would cry. Adam, instinctively diplomatic, saw his discomfort and moved immediately to dispel it. ‘Glad you asked, Robert, actually. I was just talking this week to a couple of contacts I have on Fleet Street. I was thinking of trying my hand as a foreign correspondent. Small country, nowhere grand. Somewhere in Africa, perhaps, or Latin America.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Just freelance, you understand.’

  ‘This time next year he’ll be toppling governments,’ Katherine said, brightening.

  ‘And Kat will be lighting up the London stage, or living on beans in a theatre collective in Bermondsey.’

  ‘Not mutually exclusive,’ she said, smiling. ‘What else am I going to do with a first in maths and a third in philosophy?’

  ‘You switched?’

  ‘Yes, after my first year. They’re the same thing, really, I thought. Maths I was good at, philosophy I haven’t been. I switched for love, and I was disappointed. Plus I did all the acting.’

  ‘Disappointed?
How so?’

  ‘I’ll tell you another time. It was scandalous. I’ll write about it one day. Katherine Grows Up, it’ll be called.’ Her high-strung laugh returned.

  ‘What about the Unicorn Society? Now that we exist?’ asked Robert.

  Adam gave a bark of satisfied laughter. ‘It was rather fun this evening, wasn’t it? I really was very pleased.’

  Katherine sucked deep on her cigarette, then blew a long wraith of smoke into the air. ‘Adam said we needed someone on my team to earthme. Stop me flaming out. I’m too flighty, he says.’

  ‘“Volatile” was my word, I think.’

  Robert kept talking to Adam. ‘You want to do another event?’

  ‘I’d like to fine-tune a little. I’m not sure how to extract what everyone might have learned. I’m not even sure myself what it might be. I know what it looks like. I know what I think’s in it, I know what I think the elements are. It was an experiment. I’m trying to learn how to create experiences for people. We all need to digest it a little.’

  ‘Some light is so intense it can be experienced only as darkness,’ Katherine said. ‘Some presences are so intense they can be experienced only as absence. And vice versa. I can see what you’re reaching for.’

  ‘Actually I think Newton’s Papers could be the Society’s next project. Our knight’s a military man, scientist, he’d be damn good at lighting and all of that; his damsel is an excellent seamstress, if you noticed her outfit, all homemade. Our vicar’s a born stage manager. Dear old tart’s a damn good actress. Kat directs, you produce, I meddle: it’s perfect.’

  ‘We’d better get writing, then,’ Katherine said. ‘I’m going to work on the lost material. Adam, thank you, darling. Good night. Robert, would you escort me?’

  Robert scrambled to his feet as Adam and Katherine clinched in a vigorous hug. Then, as they reached the door, a question popped into his head. ‘Just out of curiosity, why was I not supposed to talk till ten o’clock tonight?’

  Adam smiled. ‘I have observed in social settings, my friend, that when nervous or trying to impress, your words-per-minute rate approximately quadruples. This is a natural response to stress, and the same phenomenon as its opposite, clamming up or becoming tongue-tied.’