Tom Harper - The Book of Secrets

Yet even as I savoured that delight, I felt it ebbing away. I examined the paper more closely. The letters were all there, each in its proper place. But they looked less defined than before, like stone worn smooth by many feet. I rubbed my eyes, wondering if too many hours in the basement had dulled my sight.

‘What is it?’

I stood under the window. The stippled glass cast wispy shadows over the sheet, but the lettering was clear to see. I was not mistaken. The edges had blurred and spread, thickening each letter. Some had become almost indecipherable blots. Even Drach’s capital flowed less smoothly.

I found the first page we had printed and compared it. Its text was crisp, far more legible than the other. I showed it to Kaspar.

‘Perhaps we did not press hard enough.’

We printed another, then again. By the third attempt we could not doubt it. With each pressing the lines grew subtly less distinct. Eventually this gradual degeneration would render the text illegible.

I looked around the room, at thirty-odd indulgences hanging on ropes or stacked on our table. They taunted me with their illusory perfection.

But I had more urgent concerns. ‘Why has this happened?’

Drach leaned over the press, pushing his fingers into the grooves of the copper plate. ‘Copper is soft; the pressure we need to make the imprint is immense. Each copy we make squeezes the plate and deforms it.’

‘Is there nothing we can do?’

‘Make another plate.’

‘It took Dunne a week to make that.’ I did a rough calculation in my head. ‘I paid him three gulden for the labour and the copper sheet. If a sheet can only produce forty or fifty indulgences for three pennies apiece, we would lose a full gulden on every batch. Even before we count the cost of ink, paper, rent…’

‘You sound like a merchant.’

‘One of us has to.’ I rounded on him. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this would happen?’

‘I never printed enough of the cards to find out.’

I slumped down onto the floor. The promise of Ennelin’s dowry had been enough to convince Stoltz the moneylender to extend me more credit, but I had already drawn all that I could. Even when I married her I would need most of the capital simply to repay my current obligations.

I picked up one of the indulgences that had fallen to the floor beside me. Tears blurred the writing to nothing. I had mortgaged my life to pursue this project because I believed I could make something valuable.

Now all I had was paper.

Near Brussels

The man pushed Haltung forward and stepped out of the elevator. Another man followed. Both were dressed in black leather jackets and black balaclavas that hid their faces. Both carried guns.

One of them leaned forward and muttered something to Haltung, who pointed a trembling arm towards the machine room at the end of the warehouse. The two gunmen exchanged a couple of words; one gestured the other to go around the side of the room. Instinctively, Nick took a step back.

That was his mistake. The floor lights by his feet had faded out while he stood still; now they sensed his movement and immediately came on – not bright, but enough to betray him in the red murk of the basement. The two gunmen spun round and saw Nick; one of them lifted his pistol, but in that moment Haltung wrestled free of his grip and started running towards the machine room. The gunman hesitated, just long enough for Nick to fling himself down the corridor to his left.

It was the same nightmare as on the roof of his apartment. Shots rang out, though Nick had no way of knowing who they were aimed at. He ran down the corridor between the cabinets, reached a corner and turned right. A luminous path spread on the floor ahead of him. He swore, but there was nothing he could do. He made another left and another right, then stopped and waited for the lights to go out. He must be about halfway to the machine room. But what if the gunmen got there first?

The footlights faded and left Nick in half-darkness, leaning against the cold glass, breathing hard. He tried to twist around without moving his feet and scanned the space above the cabinets for the telltale glow of movement.

He was so busy looking up he almost didn’t see it coming. Only a sixth sense – perhaps a reflection in the glass, or something in the corner of his eye – saved him. He glanced back the way he had come and froze. The lights were coming on, rippling forward one by one as the footsteps advanced. They spilled around the corner and lapped towards his feet like a rising tide. Then stopped.

The intruder must be just around the corner. Did he know Nick was there? Was he waiting to see if the lights came on again? Nick’s body screamed at him to run, though he knew it would mean certain death. But he couldn’t stand there.

The lights were still on. Nick could move without being detected, but only towards the danger. He fought back the fear.

Terrified that the lights would fade, he edged towards the corner of the cabinets, like a child shuffling towards the end of a high diving board. He crouched down, feeling the warmth of the lights on his face.

The lights flashed up again as the gunman stepped around the corner. Nick didn’t wait: he pushed off on his feet and launched himself forward. The man fired, but too high. Nick crashed into him and brought him down, then rolled away. He wouldn’t win any sort of fight. He kicked the gun out of the man’s hand, then scrambled to his feet and ran.

Panic took over. Nick zigzagged through the cabinets, trying to work his way towards the machine room. He was trapped in a maze, unable to see more than an arm’s-length ahead or behind. Three more shots came, three bolts of lightning, terrifyingly loud in the low-ceilinged room. The last one rang on in his ears; the flash echoed in the darkness. Had he been hit? Was this what it felt like to die?

It was an alarm. Perhaps one of the bullets had hit something sensitive. It was no help to Nick. The alarm lights strobed the room; the bells drowned any hope of hearing his enemies. At the far end of the aisle, steel shutters were descending from the ceiling, blocking out the glass walls of the machine room. They were already below head height and slithering down with ominous speed. Nick had no choice. He hurled himself forward and sprinted down the corridor, praying there was no one with a gun behind him. All the floor lights were on full blast now, while a recorded voice barked urgent instructions he could neither hear nor understand. The grinding shutters and trilling bells were all around him, while in the background rose an enormous whine like a jet engine revving for take-off.

The doors sensed him coming and parted automatically. With the shutter closing, the opening was little more than a foot high: he flung himself onto the floor and slid underneath it.

The shutter touched the floor and snapped taut. Nick looked around, shivering with shock. Atheldene and Emily were peering out from behind the machine. There was no sign of the gunmen.

He pushed himself to his knees. He didn’t trust himself to stand. ‘What happened?’ He had to shout to make himself heard above the roar coming from behind the shutters.

‘The smoke from the gunshots set off the fire alarm,’ said Atheldene. ‘It’s on a hair trigger – as you can imagine, given the contents of that vault.’

‘Why didn’t the sprinklers come on?’

‘Don’t have them. Spraying water all over those books would be almost as bad as burning them. They seal the storage room, then suck out all the air.’ He rapped his fist on the freeze-drying machine. ‘Much like an overblown version of this.’

Nick rubbed his head. ‘Lucky I got out when I did.’

‘Quite.’