The Invisible Code (2 page)

‘What does she really look like?’ asked Tom. ‘I mean, when she drops her disguise?’

Lucy answered without hesitation. ‘She has a green face and a hooked nose covered in hairy warts, and long brown teeth and yellow eyes. And her breath smells of rotting sardines.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And toilets.’

Tom snorted in disgust as he looked around the courtyard for likely suspects. Nearby, an overweight woman in her mid-thirties was standing in a doorway eating a Pret A Manger crayfish and rocket sandwich. She seemed a likely candidate. The first of the summer’s wasps was hovering around, scenting the remains of office lunches. The woman anxiously batted one away as she ate.

‘It can’t be her,’ said Lucy.

‘Why not?’ asked Tom.

‘Witches don’t feel pain, so she wouldn’t be scared of a stupid wasp.’

‘Can a witch be a man?’

‘No, that would be a warlock. It has to be a woman.’

Tom was getting tired of the game. Lucy seemed to be making up extra rules as she went along. The June sun shone through a gap in the buildings and burned the back of his neck. The sky above the courtyard was as blue as the sea looked in old films.

He was starting to think that this was a stupid way to spend a Saturday morning when he could have been at football. He had been looking forward to seeing the
Dr Who exhibition as well, but right at the last minute his dad had to work instead, and said, ‘You can come with me to the office,’ as if it was a reasonable substitute. There was nothing to do in the office. You weren’t allowed to touch the computers or open any of the drawers. His dad seemed to like being there. He always cheered up when he had to go into the office on a Saturday.

The only other father who had brought his child in that morning was Lucy’s, so he was stuck playing with a girl until both of their fathers had finished their work. At least Lucy knew about the game, which was unusual because most girls didn’t play games like that. She explained that she had two older brothers and always ended up joining in with them. She didn’t tell him they had outgrown the game now and spent their days wired into hip-hop and dodgy downloads.

‘How about that one?’ said Lucy, taking the initiative. Her brothers could never make up their minds about anything, and always ended up arguing, so she was used to making all the decisions.

‘Nah, she’s too pretty,’ said Tom, watching a slender girl in a very short grey skirt stride past to the building at the end of the courtyard.

‘That’s the point. The prettier they look on the outside, the uglier they are inside. Too late, she’s gone.’

‘I’m bored now.’

‘Five more minutes. She’s here somewhere.’ There were only a few workers left in the square, plus a motorcycle courier who must have been stifling in his helmet and leathers.

‘It’s this one. I have a feeling. I bet she belongs to a coven; that’s a club for witches. Remember, we have to get them before they get us. Let’s check her out. Come on.’

Lucy led the way past a sad-looking young woman who had just seated herself on the bench nearest the church. She had opened a paperback and was reading it intently.
Lucy turned to Tom with an air of theatrical nonchalance and pointed behind the flat of her palm.

‘That’s definitely her.’

‘How can we tell if she’s a witch?’ Tom whispered.

‘Look for signs. Try to see what she’s reading.’

‘I can’t walk past her again, she’ll see. Wait, I’ve got an idea.’ Tom had stolen a yellow tennis ball from his father’s office. Now he produced it from his pocket. ‘Catch, then throw it back to me in her direction. I’ll miss and I’ll have to go and get it.’

Lucy was a terrible actress. If the sad-faced young woman had looked up, she would have stopped and stared at the little girl gurning and grimacing before her.

‘I’m throwing now,’ Lucy said loudly, hurling the ball ten feet wide of the boy. Tom scrambled in slow motion around the bench, and the young woman briefly raised her eyes.

Tom ran back to Lucy’s side. ‘She’s reading a book about babies.’

‘What was it called?’

‘
Rosemary’s Baby
. By a woman called Ira something.’

‘Then she’s definitely a witch.’

‘How do you know?’

Lucy blew a raspberry of impatience. ‘Don’t you know anything? Witches eat babies! Everyone knows that.’

‘So she really is one,’ Tom marvelled. ‘She looks so normal.’

‘Yeah, clever isn’t it?’ Lucy agreed. ‘So, how are we going to kill her?’

2

DEATH IN THE WEDDING CAKE

EVEN THOUGH THE
presses of the Fourth Estate had been shifted to London’s hinterlands by Rupert Murdoch, St Bride’s Church was still known to many as the Printers’ Cathedral. Tucked behind Fleet Street, it stood on a pagan site dedicated to Brigit, the Celtic goddess of healing, fire and childbirth. For two thousand years the spot had been a place of worship, and for the past five hundred it had been the spiritual home of journalists. Samuel Pepys, no mean reporter himself, had been born in Salisbury Court, right next to the church, and had later bribed the gravedigger of St Bride’s to shift up the corpses so that his brother John could be buried in the churchyard.

St Bride’s’ medieval lectern had survived the Great Fire and the Luftwaffe’s bombs. It still stood bathed in the lunchtime sunlight, barely registered by the tourists who stopped by to take photographs of just another London church. The building had been badly damaged in the firestorm of 29 December 1940, but had now been restored according to Wren’s original drawings.

With the paperback in her hand, the sad young woman walked into the church and looked about. Amy O’Connor
had been here many times before, but her visits had never brought her the satisfaction she’d hoped for. She knew little about the church except the one thing everyone knew: that the shape of a wedding cake came from its tiered spire. It was usually empty inside, a place where she could sit still and calm herself. Her encounter with the children in the courtyard had disturbed her. It was as if they had been slyly studying her.

Before her the great canopied oak reredos dedicated to the Pilgrim Fathers stood in front of what appeared to be a half-domed apse, but it was actually a magnificent
trompe l’oeil
. A striking oval stained-glass panel, like an upright eye holding the image of Christ, shone light down on to the polished marble floor, which was laid with black Belgian and white Italian tiles.

Amy looked around the empty pews with their homely little lampshades. If there had been any lunchtime worshippers here, they had all gone back to work now. The churchwarden was still on his break and had probably headed up the road for a pie and a pint in the Cheshire Cheese. Someone had taken over for him, and was manning the little shop selling books and postcards near the entrance.

Seating herself in one of the oak chairs arranged near the pulpit, she closed her eyes and let the light of God shine through the dazzling reds, blues and yellows of the stained glass on to her bare freckled arms and upturned face. It was like being inside a gently shifting kaleidoscope. The light divided her into primary colours. She swayed back and forth, feeling the changing patterns on her eyelids. She thought of lost love, wasted time and missed opportunities.

She was still furious with herself for losing the only man she had ever loved. She had been angry for more than two years now, and only coming to St Bride’s could dull the ache of loss. If she had taken him more seriously and tried
harder to help, she was sure he would still be with her.

His death had hastened the end of her trust in God, but here in the church he must have loved she felt a connection between the present and the past, the living and the dead. She could believe that angels were watching and guiding her thoughts.

But when she opened her eyes, she found that pair of children still peering through the door at her. Where were their parents, and why were they staring?

They looked as if they were waiting for something to happen.

The church’s thick walls kept it cool even in the heat of summer. The chill radiated from the stones. But now, after just a few minutes, the interior started to seem hot and airless. The light from the windows hurt her eyes. She could feel her face burning.

Suddenly aware that she was perspiring, she wiped her forehead with the paper tissue she kept tucked in her sleeve, and looked up at the drifting motes of dust caught in the sunlight coming through the plain glass on either side of the nave. Perhaps it was her imagination, but today she really did feel closer to some kind of spiritual presence in here.

The sensation was growing, starting to envelop her. Perhaps God had finally decided to make himself known, and would apologize for screwing up her life. The colours in the oval window above the altar grew more vivid by the second. Even the oak pews that faced each other across the church seemed to give off waves of warmth.

It wasn’t her imagination. The church was definitely getting hotter. The light streaming through the glass was tinged crimson. The floor was rippling in the heat. It was as if the entire building had divorced itself from its moorings and was sinking down to hell.

Suddenly she felt very close to a watchful being, but it wasn’t God – it was the Devil.

She twisted her head to see the children leaning in from outside the church door, still staring at her intently. And someone or something no more than a stretched silhouette was behind them, dark and faceless, willing them on to evil deeds.

I am going to suffer
, she thought.
This is all wrong. I can’t die before knowing the truth
.

As the church tipped and she fell slowly from her chair, all she felt was frustration with the incompleteness of life.

3

HEALTH CHECK

‘
YOU NEED TO
start acting your age,’ said Dr Gillespie.

‘If I did that, I’d be dead.’ Arthur Bryant coughed loudly, causing the doctor to tear off his stethoscope.

‘Would you kindly refrain from doing that when I’m listening to your heart?’ he complained. ‘You nearly deafened me.’

‘What?’ asked Bryant, who had been thinking about something else.

‘Deaf,’ said Dr Gillespie. ‘You nearly deafened me.’

‘Yes, I’m quite deaf, but don’t worry, it’s not catching. You’re a doctor, you should know that. I’ve got a hearing aid but it keeps picking up old radio programmes. I put it on yesterday morning and listened to an episode of
Two-Way Family Favourites
from 1963.’ He coughed again.

Dr Gillespie coughed too. ‘That’s not possible. How long have you been coming here?’ he asked, thumping his chest.

‘Forty-two years,’ said Bryant. ‘You ought to cut down on the oily rags.’

‘The what?’

‘The fags. The snouts. Gaspers. Coffin nails. Lung darts.’

‘All right, I get the picture.’

‘The doctor I had before you is dead now. He was a smoker, too.’

Dr Gillespie coughed harder. ‘He was run over by a bus.’

‘Yes, but he was on his way to the tobacconist.’

‘You smoke a pipe.’

‘My tobacco has medicinal properties. Is there anything else wrong with me?’

‘Well, quite a lot, but nothing’s actually dropping off. It’s mostly to do with your age. How old are you, exactly?’