Tom Harper: The Book of Secrets

‘You went out late,’ said Bret. ‘Your pimp call?’

Nick went to the kitchen counter and flipped on the kettle. ‘I had a message from Gillian.’

‘Mmmm.’ Bret licked grease off his fingers and reached for the mouse. ‘Is she back in town?’

‘I think she’s in Europe.’

‘One hundred.’ Bret clicked. The letters disappeared, replaced on screen by a grappling pair of naked women. Their mouths hung open in frozen masks of delight. ‘She is nice.’

Nick splashed hot water over the coffee grounds, then decided he couldn’t face the wait. He’d get one at the store on the corner.

‘I’m going out.’

Bret waved. The pizza flapped in his hand like dead skin. ‘I’ll be here.’

Nick rode the A train to 190th Street and walked up Fort Washington Avenue. The rain had softened into a fine freezing mist that seeped down his collar into his bones. The last time he’d come here it had been midsummer, leafy trees shading the street and kids chasing each other with water pistols. He’d bought Gillian an ice cream from the Good Humor van. Now the trees were bare, the street empty. On the grey hill in front of him the stone tower of a medieval monastery poked above the forest, a fragment of a foreign place and time resurrected on the tip of Manhattan. The Cloisters museum. Beyond it, the slope fell away to the Hudson, the bluffs on the far shore little more than shadows in the mist. The bass roar of traffic crossing the George Washington Bridge lingered in the air like distant thunder.

The museum was all but deserted. Nick paid his admission and wandered across to a guide, a white-haired lady poised like a hawk to pounce on visitors. The brooch on her lapel tagged her like an exhibit: ‘PAM’. Manhattan, mid-20th century, possible Jewish origin. Her eyes gleamed as Nick approached.

He pulled out the picture Gillian had sent.

‘Do you recognise this?’

The docent’s gaze flicked over the page. Four lions and four bears stared back at her.

‘I don’t know.’ Nick could see her disappointment. ‘Maybe you should try Dr Sutherland.’

‘Where can I find him?’

‘Her. She’s probably in the Unicorn room.’ She pointed to the cloister through the open door. ‘Down to the end.’

The Cloisters was a strange place. A chimera, Gillian had called it: a museum stitched together from the dismembered pieces of other buildings brought over from the Old World. A Romanesque corridor leading to a Gothic hall, a Spanish chapel next to a French chapter house. Nick walked down the empty arcade, ducked through a twelfth-century doorway and entered a long, dimly lit room. Its walls were almost invisible behind the seven vast tapestries that covered them. A young woman knelt in front of one, examining the threads with what looked like a small torch. Above her, a horde of dogs and men with spears surrounded a unicorn, who had impaled one of the dogs on its horn. Its sad eyes brimmed with desperation.

Nick’s shoes squeaked on the polished floor and the woman started.

‘Dr Sutherland?’ She looked as though she’d stepped out of a black-and-white photograph: black hair tied back with a black ribbon, smooth ivory skin, a neat black skirt-suit with a white blouse buttoned close to the neck. The only colour came from her shoes, glossy red patent leather.

‘My name’s Nick Ash. I’m sorry to bother you…’ He hesitated. ‘I’m a friend of Gillian Lockhart.’ A blank. ‘She used to work here.’

‘Oh.’ An apologetic smile. ‘I’ve only been here since October. I don’t know…’

She sounded British. ‘Perhaps you can help me anyway.’ Nick unfolded the printout and passed it to her. He saw something flicker in her dark eyes. ‘I got sent this yesterday, sort of, um, mysteriously. I was hoping someone here could tell me what it is.’

She studied it for a moment, her lips mouthing silently. ‘It’s fifteenth century. Copper engraving by a German artist, probably of upper Rhenish origin. Datable to around 1430.’ She saw confusion on Nick’s face and laughed, embarrassed at herself. ‘It’s a playing card.’

‘Shouldn’t there be hearts or clubs or something?’

‘The lions and bears are the suit.’ She tugged a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. ‘Actually, I think it’s wild beasts. The number of the card is shown by the number of animals on it.’

‘You obviously know a lot about it.’

She shrugged, embarrassed again. ‘Not really. Art History 101 stuff. My research is more to do with animal symbolism. But these cards are famous. They’re just about the earliest examples of printing from copper engraving we have.’

‘Who made them?’

‘That we don’t know. Most medieval artworks aren’t signed, and there are no records for where these came from. Art historians call him the Master of the Playing Cards. There are some other engravings that we attribute to him on stylistic grounds, but the playing cards are the main thing that’s survived.’

‘Are there others?’

‘There are a few dozen that have survived in Europe. Mostly in Paris, I think. The deck’s very unusual: it has five suits, instead of the usual four. Deer, birds, flowers, men…’ She tapped the printout lightly. ‘And wild beasts.’

An awkward pause hung between them. In looking at the printout he’d crowded her, pushing her back so that she now stood in the pool of light cast by a stained-glass window high in the wall. The glass splayed a mess of colours across her chest like a wound. In his mind’s eye Nick saw the snarling face lunging towards the camera. He shivered.

‘Can I keep this?’ She held up the paper, watching him curiously. He hesitated.

‘Sure.’

‘I’ll see if I can find out anything more when I finish work.’ She nodded to the tapestry. ‘I should really…’

‘Right.’

Nick fumbled in his wallet and pulled out a card. Her fingers brushed his as she took it – slender and white, the nails daubed scarlet. She read it.

‘Digital Forensic Reconstruction?’

‘I piece things together.’

It was an old line, something to use when he wanted to seem interesting. Now it just sounded hollow.

On his way out he saw the guide again. Still without any visitors to enlighten, she was standing in the cloister, watching the rain trickle off the fluted roof-tiles into the garden. A stone saint on a pedestal watched over her shoulder.

‘Did you find Dr Sutherland?’

‘She was very helpful.’ He wasn’t sure if that was true. ‘But I wanted to ask you something. Have you been here long?’

She drew herself up a little straighter.

‘Seventeen years.’

‘Did you know Gillian Lockhart? She used to work here.’

Behind the glasses, her heavily shadowed eyes narrowed. She pretended to examine the sculpted saint behind him. ‘Is she a friend of yours?’

‘She was. I – I lost touch with her. I just wondered if you knew where she went after here?’

The guide swung back towards Nick, looking him firmly in the eye. Seventeen stern years of educating ignorance and dispelling error was channelled into her fearsome stare. ‘We lost touch with her too. I don’t want to be telling tales out of school, but in my opinion that was a darn good thing. Pardon my French.’

Nick tried to hold her gaze and found he couldn’t. Before he could think what to say, the trill of his cellphone gatecrashed the rain-pattered still of the cloister. The guide’s look could have turned him to stone. Blushing furiously, staring at the floor, he pulled it out of his coat pocket and flipped it open. He barely caught a glimpse of the incoming number flashing on the screen before he jammed it off. The phone went dead.

‘This is a museum.’ Her voice was possibly louder than the phone had been.