The Last Gospel (38 page)

‘So this guy Deverette was here in London during Wren’s rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral?’ Costas asked.

‘He was here from 1685, when he arrived in England. Wren’s men had finished the new structure of the Church of St Lawrence Jewry a few years earlier, but the ledger we found in the college library shows that 1685 was the year they broke through into the undercroft, the old crypt. That’s where it gets really fascinating. It turns out Deverette had another passion. He was a keen antiquarian, a collector of Roman and Christian relics. Wren was also interested in all the old stuff his men found during his building work in London. He gave Deverette another job, to rescue interesting artefacts. A kind of archaeological watching brief.’

‘He’s our man,’ Jack said excitedly. ‘We know somebody got into the tomb and found that cylinder. It must be him.’

‘Did he keep any records?’ Costas said, coughing.

‘I checked everywhere. I went back through all the published Wren papers, everything on the churches, all his personal papers. Nothing. Then I had a brainstorm. I went to the National Archives at Kew, got there just in time yesterday afternoon. I did a search of the records of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury.’

‘You found his will,’ Jack exclaimed.

Jeremy nodded, his face flushed. ‘Many of the ecclesiastical wills are now online, but his was in a newly discovered batch that had been filed wrongly and has only just been catalogued. My librarian friend told me about it. I was incredibly lucky.’

‘Let’s have it,’ Jack said.

Jeremy took out a scanned image from his sheaf of papers. It showed a yellowed page, with about twenty lines of neat handwriting. Below the handwriting was a red seal and a signature, with more signatures and a scrawled probate note at the bottom. Jeremy began to read: ‘“In the Name of God, Amen. I, Johannes Deverette, Musick Meister to Sir Christopher Wren, Knight, Surveyor General of her Majesty’s Works, doe make and ordain this my last Will and Testment as followeth. I desire that my body may be decently buried without pomp at the discretion of said Sir Christopher Wren, herein after named sole Executor and Trustee.” ’

‘My God,’ Jack murmured. ‘Wren was his executor. He must have known about any antiquities Deverette possessed, anything he’d found in London and been allowed to keep by Wren, anything he’d chosen to pass on at his death.’

Jeremy nodded. ‘Deverette died only a few months after making the will, when his son and heir was still a minor, so Wren would have safeguarded any bequeathed possessions. But wait for it. There’s the usual inscrutable verbiage about chattel and estates, but the final sentences are the crunch.’ He read aloud: ‘“All of my books, musick and musickal instruments, I give and bequeath unto my sone John Everett. To my said sone too I bequeath all of my antient rarities, my Cabinett of Curositys and Relicks from the divers excavations in Londone of said Sir Christopher Wren, including the Godspelle taken by me from the hand of the Antient priestess. This last mentioned to be kept in Security, in the most sacred Trust, and bequeathed by my said sone to his own sone and heire, and thereafter to his sone and heire, in perpetuity, in the Name of Christ, Jesu Domine. Signed and Sealed by the above named Johannes Deverette as and for his last Will and Testament in the presence of us who have subscribed our names as written in his presence, this sixth of Auguste 1711. Chris. Wren. Grinling Gibbons. Witnesses.”’

‘Godspelle,’ Costas said. ‘What on earth’s that?’

Jack’s heart was pounding. His voice was hoarse. ‘Jeremy said it a few moments ago. It’s Old English, meaning “good word”. And meaning Gospel.’ Jack paused, and swallowed hard. ‘It means that Deverette found the scroll in that cylinder, and must have read it.’

Costas attempted a whistle. ‘Game on again.’

‘It’s the only reason I can see why he would have called it that,’ Jeremy said.

‘It’s the first indication we’ve had of what Claudius’ document might have contained,’ Jack said, peering at Jeremy. ‘I hardly dare ask. Did you get any further?’

‘It was easy enough tracing Deverette’s descendants,’ Jeremy replied. ‘The Huguenots kept pretty good family records. Deverette himself anglicized the name, had his son named Everett. The musical tradition seems to have carried on, but they came to make their living as builders and architects. For generations they were worthies of the Carpenters’ Company, one of the most prominent London guilds. They settled in Lawrence Lane, overlooking the church, only yards from the crypt where Deverette had made his discovery.’

‘Guardians of the tomb,’ Costas murmured.

‘This is beginning to fit together,’ Jack said quietly. ‘The secret crypt, the burials of those women we found, the succession of names from Roman times to the Great Fire of 1666. I think they were a secret sect who knew about the tomb, knew about the treasure it held, were the original guardians. But then the Great Fire broke the succession, burned the church and buried the entrance to their crypt and the tomb.’

‘Maybe it was like the eruption of Vesuvius for the Sibyl at Cumae,’ Costas said. ‘Fire and ash foredooming, all that. The end of their time.’

‘And then by sheer chance the tomb was found again, the sacred gospel was removed, and the cycle of guardianship was renewed,’ Jack murmured.

‘The strong Huguenot family tradition counts in our favour again,’ Jeremy said. ‘There’s no reference to relics in any of the later wills, but the power of that original bequest in Deverette’s will would have held sway through the generations. And there’s something else, a real clincher. In the mid-nineteenth century, Deverette’s great-grandson John Everett was associated with a secretive Victorian society called the New Pelagians, who claimed to follow the teaching of the rebel British monk Pelagius. They believed they were the true inheritors of the earliest Christian tradition in Britain.’

‘Claudius?’ Jack murmured. ‘Can we really trace all this back to him?’

‘To one he met in Judaea,’ Costas murmured.

Jeremy carried on. ‘The Everetts continued to be prominent in the City of London in the nineteenth century, always living and working close to St Lawrence Jewry and the Guildhall. John Everett the Pelagian was a Councillor of the Corporation of London, and a freedman of the City. His son Samuel was master of the Carpenters’ Company. But then something odd happens. Samuel’s eldest son, Lawrence Everett, was an architect like his father. But almost immediately after his father died in 1912, he closed his business in Lawrence Lane, left his family and disappeared. You can read too much into it, but it’s as if Lawrence Everett was the last of the guardians and broke the succession, taking the treasure away to a new sanctuary before hell was unleashed again during the London Blitz.’

‘Any idea where he went?’ Jack said.

‘Immigration records, passenger manifests. A lot of stuff to research. I’ve got one promising lead, though.’

‘You always do,’ Jack said. ‘You’re becoming indispensable, you know.’

‘I might be able to make some headway back at the National Archives in Kew. It might take me another day.’

‘Let’s get on with it then.’

 

Five minutes later they stood under the entrance to St Paul’s Cathedral, looking out through the sweeping curtains of rain and seeking a break in the deluge. Jack felt as if he were on an island, and the solidity of the cathedral with the veiled miasma outside seemed to mirror his state of mind. The astonishing revelations of the last hours had taken the quest forward by leaps and bounds, made it seem as real as the structure above them, yet their goal still seemed like an unseen beacon somewhere out beyond the rain, down some dark alley they might never find. Jack had a sudden, surreal flashback to the lost library in Herculaneum, the image seeming to concertina into a succession of chambers, the doors open as far as he could see but the goal out of sight in the distance. He knew their only hope now lay with Jeremy, that some revelation in the archives would push them towards that last door, to the place Claudius had wanted them to find.

‘Don’t tell me we’re going on the Tube, Jack,’ Costas croaked. ‘You know I’m never going underground again.’

‘As it happens, I’ve always wanted to see the Great Conduit,’ Jack replied, winking at Jeremy. ‘An underground channel built in the thirteenth century to bring fresh water from the Tyburn stream, about three kilometres west of here. The stone cisterns sound impressive, but Roman aqueduct engineers a thousand years earlier would have been appalled. It leaked, and the gravity flow was all wrong. A great example of the march of progress, marching backwards. Well worth a visit.’

‘No,’ Costas said flatly. ‘No way. You go. And I’m only doing taxis from now on.’

Jack grinned, then saw a respite in the drizzle and stepped out from the cathedral entrance. At that moment a young man in a City suit disengaged himself from a group of people also sheltering under the entrance and walked in front of Jack, blocking his way. ‘Dr Howard?’ he said intently. Jack stepped back in alarm. The man handed him a slip of paper. ‘Tomorrow, eleven a.m. Your lives may depend on it.’ He moved off and quickly trotted down the steps, disappearing into the throng of morning commuters making their way into the City.

Jack quickly stepped back under the doorway and read the note, then passed it to Jeremy. ‘Did you recognize him?’ Jack asked.

‘I’m not sure.’ Jeremy anxiously scanned the other people on the steps. ‘It’s not good news if you’ve been tracked here, Jack.’

‘I know.’

Jeremy glanced at the piece of paper, read the typed words and pursed his lips. ‘Right in the heart of things.’ He passed it back to Jack. ‘You going?’

‘I don’t think we have any choice.’

‘I’d go with you, but I have to stay and find out what I can about Everett.’

‘I agree,’ Jack said quietly.

‘Take Costas with you. You might need a bodyguard.’

Jack looked at the form slumped miserably against the stone column beside them, dripping and sneezing. He walked over, took Costas by the shoulder and steered him towards the steps. The rain had begun again in earnest, and Costas looked as if he were about to dissolve. ‘Come on,’ Jack said, looking up for a moment and letting the rainwater stream over his face. ‘I think we might just be able to do something about that sniffle of yours.’

A
t five minutes to eleven the next morning Jack led Costas across the Piazza San Pietro in the Vatican, heading towards the Ufficio Scavi, the office of the archaeological excavations, on the south side of the basilica. They had flown in that morning from England on the IMU Embraer, arriving at Leonardo da Vinci airport away from public scrutiny, and Jack felt sure they were not being followed. The vast scale of the piazza and the surrounding colonnade seemed to dwarf the milling crowd of tourists and pilgrims, and they passed through as inconspicuously as they could. As they came closer to the Ufficio, Jack began to scan the faces around them, looking for some sign, some recognition. He had no idea what to expect. Then out of nowhere a young man was walking beside him, dressed casually in jeans and an open-necked shirt and wearing sunglasses. ‘Dr Howard?’ the man said. Jack looked at him, and nodded. ‘Please follow me.’ Jack glanced at Costas, and they followed the man as he strode ahead. After passing the Ufficio, he approached the Swiss Guard at the entrance to the Arco delle Campane, and flashed his identity card. ‘These are my two guests,’ he said in Italian. ‘A private tour.’ The guard nodded, and lifted up his automatic rifle to let them pass. They crossed a small piazza, then entered the south annex of the Grottoes beneath the Basilica. At the third room, the young man motioned for them to wait, and then walked over to a locked door. ‘We will not be disturbed,’ he said in English. ‘The Ufficio has closed this part of the Grottoes for more excavation work. Wait here.’ He produced a set of keys and opened the door, slipping through and leaving Jack and Costas alone, suddenly hemmed in by silence and the old walls.

‘Any idea what’s going on?’ Costas said quietly, his voice bunged up by his cold. ‘Any idea where we are?’

‘First question, your guess is as good as mine. Second, these walls are virtually all that’s left of the early basilica, the one built here by the emperor Constantine the Great after he’d converted to Christianity in the early fourth century. Before that, this was the site of a Roman circus, a racetrack. And where our guide has disappeared is the entrance to the necropolis, a street of rock-cut mausolea of the first century AD, discovered when archaeological excavations began here in the 1940s. Their big find was the tomb of St Peter, ahead of us under the high altar.’

The door swung open and the young man reappeared. He handed Jack and Costas each an unlit candle, and flicked a lighter over the wicks. ‘Where you see the candle on the floor, go right, but extinguish it and take it with you,’ he said quietly. ‘There are twelve steps down, then you’ll see another candle through another door. Pass through that door, and then close it behind you. I’ll wait for you here. Go.’