Tom Knox - The Genesis Secret

'"Undish".'

'Undish?' said Rob, bemused.

'Yeah. Spelled as it sounds. U N D I S H.'

The group was silent. A few seagulls cawed. Sally asked the question that hovered between them. 'What the hell does undish mean?'

'We don't have any idea,' Forrester replied. 'It's got some musical connection but that doesn't seem relevant.'

Rob observed Christine and saw that she was half smiling. Then she said, 'James Joyce! That's it. James Joyce. That's the answer.'

Rob frowned. 'I don't see the relevance.'

'That's what Hugo was talking to me about, that was the last thing he said to me, before the gang arrived. In Cambridgeshire.' She was talking fast, and walking just as fast-towards the footbridge. 'When I last saw him-De Savary-he said he had a new theory. About the Whaley evidence, the Black Book. And he mentioned Joyce.' She looked at Rob. 'And he knew that I was trying to get you to read Ulysses or Portrait-'

'Without much luck!'

'Sure. But, still. I've been thinking about this while I was imprisoned. And now…Undish.' She snatched a pen from her handbag and scrawled the word on an opened notebook.

UNDISH.

She looked down at the handiwork. 'Undish undish undish. There's no such word. But that's because De Savary was trying to deceive the killers.'

'What?'

'If he'd written the whole word they might have seen it and Cloncurry would have worked it out. He couldn't have known if they were coming back. So instead he wrote a nonsense word. But a nonsense word that he reckoned someone might work out. Maybe you, Rob. If you ever heard it.'

Rob shrugged. 'Still don't get it.'

'Of course not. You never did read Joyce, despite my enthusiasm! And you'd need to know the books well. Hugo and I loved talking about Joyce. Endless discussions.'

Dooley interrupted impatiently, 'All right then, so what does undish mean?'

'It doesn't mean anything. But it just needs one letter to complete it. The letter T. Then it becomes…' She scrawled an extra letter next to the word on her notebook and showed it to them. 'Tundish!'

Rob sighed. 'That's great, Christine. But who or what's a tundish? How the hell does that help Lizzie?'

'It's not a common word. It occurs only once, as far as I know, in major English literature. And that's the point. Because the passage in which it occurs is in Joyce's first masterpiece. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And I think there may be a serious clue in there. To help us.' She looked at the faces all around her. 'Remember that Joyce knew more about Dublin than any man. He knew everything: every legend, every scrap of information, every tiny anecdote, and he poured them into his books.'

'OK,' said Rob, dubiously.

'Joyce would have known every secret and myth about the Irish Hellfires. And what they did.' Christine snapped her notebook shut. 'So I'm guessing that passage might just tell us where to find what we need, to save Lizzie.' She stared across the river. 'And there, I believe, is a bookshop.'

Rob swivelled. Just across the spindly new footbridge, on the other side of the torpid Liffey, was a branch of Eason's bookstore.

The five of them crossed the river and entered the store en masse, rather to the surprise of the young sales assistant. Immediately Christine went to the Irish Classics section. 'Here.' She pounced on a copy of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and flicked feverishly through it. 'And here…are…the tundish pages.'

'Read it out.'

'The tundish passage occurs about halfway through the book. Stephen Dedalus, the hero, the artist of the title, has gone to see his tutor, a Jesuit dean of English studies at University College Dublin. They have a debate about philology. And that's where we come in. Here's what it says: "To return to the lamp, the feeding of it is also a nice problem. You must choose the pure oil…using the funnel".' She looked up at the assembled, expectant faces. 'I'm doing dialogue here. Don't expect an accent.' Returning to the book, she recited: '"What funnel? asked Stephen.-The funnel through which you pour the oil into your lamp.-That? said Stephen. Is that called a funnel? Is it not a tundish?'" Christine stopped reading.

Rob nodded slowly. 'So they talk about funnels. Where's the Hellfire stuff?'

'The precise passage we want is a page or two back.' Christine flicked and scanned. 'Here it is. "But the trees in Stephen's Green were fragrant of rain and the rain-sodden earth gave forth its mortal odour, a faint incense rising upward through the mould from many hearts…he knew that in a moment when he entered the sombre college he would be conscious of a corruption other than Buck Egan and Burnchapel Whaley".'

Rob nodded eagerly now.

'Wait, there's more.' She turned another page and calmly recited. '"It was too late to go upstairs to the French class. He crossed the hall and took the corridor to the left which led to the physics theatre. The corridor was dark and silent but not unwatchful. Why did he feel that it was not unwatchful? Was it because he had heard that in Buck Whaley's time there was a secret staircase there?"' She closed the book.

The bookshop was quiet.

'Ah.' Said Dooley.

'Yes!' said Boijer.

'But surely it can't be that obvious,' Sally said, frowning. 'A secret staircase. Just like that? Why wouldn't that horrible gang have had a look?'

'Maybe they don't read Joyce,' said Forrester.

'It makes sense,' Dooley surmised. 'Historically. The Whaley connection is true. There are two great big houses on St Stephen's Green. And I am sure one of them was built for Richard Burnchapel Whaley.'

'The building still exists?' asked Rob.

'Of course. I think they are still used by University College even now.'

Rob was heading for the door. 'Come on, guys. What are we waiting for? Please. We've got one day.'

Just a couple of minutes of urgent walking brought them to a large Georgian square where lofty terraces overlooked a noble green space. The gardens and lawns had an inviting aspect, sunlight glittering through the greenery. For a moment Rob imagined his daughter playing happily in the gardens. He stifled his piercing sadness. His fear was unquenchable.

The old university college turned out to be one of the largest houses on the square: elegant and chaste, in grey Portland stone. Rob found it difficult to link this impressive building with the homicidal depravities of Burnchapel Whaley and his even crazier son. The sign outside read Newman House: part of University College Dublin.

Dooley buzzed the bell while Christine and Rob loitered on the pavement below. Sally elected to wait on a bench in the square itself: Forrester assigned Boijer to stay with her. There was some debate over the intercom: then Dooley gave his full police title, and the door opened smartly. The hallway beyond was nearly as spectacular as the exterior: with scrolling Georgian plasterwork, grey and white, and exquisite.

'Wow,' said Dooley.

'Yes we're very proud of it.'

It was a New England American accent. A neatly-suited, middle-aged man trotted along the hallway and extended a hand to Dooley. 'Ryan Matthewson, Principal of Newman House. Hello, officer…and hello…'

They exchanged names; Forrester showed his badge. The principal took them into the receptionist's cluttered office.

'But officers, the break-in was last week, I'm not sure why they've sent you now?' he said.

Rob felt a lowering feeling.

'Break-in?' said Dooley. 'When? Sorry?'

'It was nothing important. Some days back a group of kids broke into a cellar. Probably drug addicts. We never caught them. They positively brutalized the cellar stairs. God knows why.' Matthewson shrugged his uninterest. 'But the Gardai sent a constable at the time. We've already been over this. He took all the details…'