The Secret Prophecy (13 page)

Chapter 28

P
rofessor Edward Goverton sounded exactly as if he were in the university lecture hall facing an audience of students. His tone was dry and precise; his voice was strong. But as his first few words confirmed, he was lecturing to an audience of one.

“Since you are listening to this, Em, I fear I must be dead. Doubtless this will upset you—I am none too pleased myself—but neither of us can afford the luxury of self-pity. I have made a dangerous discovery. In sharing it, I am aware that I place you in danger as well; but for the sake of our future, for the sake of the world, someone must stop what is planned. Although you are far too young for such responsibility, I know of no one else I can trust. I have already discovered that the enemy we face is ubiquitous and faceless. I suspect it has infiltrated many positions of power. I fear it has infiltrated my university. Thus, even academic colleagues and friends fall under suspicion.

“As you know, I have long been fascinated by the life and works of the sixteenth-century French prophet Nostradamus. What you do not know, because I did not choose to tell you before now, is that during my research for that book, I came across some textural references to a hitherto undiscovered prophecy by Nostradamus.”

Em stared beyond the iPod at the tabletop.
No, but you told your best friend, and he chose to tell me after you went and died. So now I’m going to hear it for the second time.
For some reason the thought made Em feel sad. It wasn’t right, somehow, that he should have heard about his father’s great discovery from anybody else.

“And what you certainly don’t know, because I have shared this with no one, is that I managed to discover the full text of the prophecy itself.”

So Charlotte was right! Dad
had
discovered the secret prophecy. But she couldn’t have been right about him stealing it. Em really did know his father better than that.

Or thought he did.

“‘Pendant les jours de la peste menacée . . .’” said his father’s voice on the podcast. “‘Quand des enfants seront percés avec la lance mince . . . un nouveau monde se lève de la douleur du monde vieux . . . et toute l’humanité soutiendra le joug de esclavage pour toujours.’
That is the prophecy, exactly as Nostradamus wrote it. I committed it to memory. I had to. The original text, the actual document, is in the possession of a Masonic Lodge in Toulon. One of their most closely guarded secrets. But the Grand Master happens to be a good friend of mine. I mentioned to him that I had reason to believe a secret prophecy existed. He made no comment at the time; but one evening, after he had too much Cognac, he confirmed the existence of such a prophecy and claimed to have seen it for himself. He even agreed to show me the document in question on condition I did not photograph or copy it. I held it only for a moment—just long enough to confirm the handwriting as that of Nostradamus, which was what he wanted. It never occurred to him that I could memorize it in so short a time. But it was only four lines of Early Modern French, not all that difficult, really. How’s your French these days, Em? Can you translate it for me?”

Not a chance, Dad,
Em thought.

“No matter. I have never believed you were cut out for a life as a scholar, nor would I wish you to become one. I have made my own translation of the quatrain, which I am reasonably certain captures the sense of what Nostradamus was trying to say. What he wrote was . . . ‘In the days of the threatened plague . . . when children shall be pierced with slender lance . . . a new world rises from the suffering of the old . . . and all mankind shall forever bear the yoke of slavery.’”

Whatever that means,
Em thought. The prophecy said as little to him in English as it did in the original French. Although he’d never shared his father’s fascination for Nostradamus, he knew enough to realize that a whole raft of his prophecies were like pictures in the fire: they were so vague, they could mean almost anything you wanted them to mean. Then, suddenly, he remembered what Victor had said about Nostradamus’s connection to the Knights of Themis. Was this one of the prophecies that was meant to hasten the demise of democracy? But if it was, he couldn’t quite see how . . .

“Now, you must have suspected I might believe Nostradamus to be a genuine prophet. That’s to say you must have suspected that I believed—in certain instances at least—that Nostradamus could see the future. Let me confirm that you were right.”

For the first time, Professor Goverton’s voice lost its lecture hall edge. It became at once more intimate, confessional, and, if Em read it right, maybe just a little bit guilty.
“This is a difficult area, Em. When I first began my study of Nostradamus, it seemed that some of his prophecies were genuinely predictive. So I decided to investigate the whole question of prediction and joined the Society for Psychical Research in London. Their records showed me it really was possible to foresee the future. But the very best precogs who were scientifically tested did not manage it every time or even most of the time.

“This was a more exciting discovery than it sounds, because the prophecies of Nostradamus follow exactly that pattern. But it occurred to me that even if only one in a hundred of his predictions was correct, would that not be worth investigating?”

On the iPod, Professor Goverton released an involuntary sigh.
“Which is why, having discovered what was in effect a brand-new Nostradamus prophecy, my immediate instinct was to try to find out whether this was one of those rare instances in which he predicted accurately. I began my own historical research in the hope of finding a set of circumstances that would provide a perfect fit for his words.

“At first I thought the appearance of the word
plague
in the quatrain narrowed my field of investigation. I assumed it would refer to the period of the Black Death. But try as I might, I could find no circumstances matching the words of the prophecy. So I turned my attention to later centuries. Eventually my research brought me right up to the present day, but still with nothing to match the prophecy. I decided I was on a wild-goose chase.

“Then something happened to change my mind.”

“Listen,” Victor said, “this ear bud is giving me a crick in my neck. If that gizmo has a standard audio jack, I can rig it up to a set of speakers. That way we can all listen to it properly, and I can start taking notes without having to lean at an angle of forty-five degrees and you two can stop looking like Siamese twins.”

Em tapped the button that paused his father’s voice in midsentence. “Okay,” he said. He was finding sharing the ear bud a bit of a trial himself.

“What do you think about the message so far?” Charlotte asked quietly as Victor left the room.

“Don’t know,” Em said. “I don’t think he’s come to the point yet.” He stared at the iPod a little gloomily. Nothing his father said so far had thrown the slightest light on what was going on.

Victor returned from the other room after a moment carrying an old-fashioned set of powered speakers. He plugged them into a wall socket and then separated them out, wires trailing, on the table. He picked up the iPod. The connector fit. Victor made a couple of final adjustments to the speakers. “Okay, start it going, and we’ll see if this works.” Em thumbed the little
START
triangle on the screen.

Professor Goverton’s voice emerged as if he were standing with them in the room.
“—secret prophecy at this stage,”
he was saying,
“but this seemed like a promising—”

“Hold on,” Em said. “I’ll rewind. I must have scrubbed the slider.” There was no way of telling where his dad was at any point in the podcast, but he fiddled around using trial and error until he found the place he wanted. As he sat back, Charlotte reached out to give his nearest hand a sympathetic squeeze.

“Then something happened to change my mind,”
said Professor Goverton soberly.
“One morning while I was shaving, it occurred to me that there were many forms of plague. Indeed, the word was often used loosely to describe any form of epidemic disease. This seemed like a promising new approach. I began to research historical references to any epidemic disease—the influenza pandemic after the First World War and so forth—but there was still nothing that matched the words of the prophecy.”

“Goes on a bit, doesn’t he?” Victor remarked. “He’s doing a pretty thorough job of telling us what he
didn’t
find.”

Em smiled despite himself. “He’ll get to the point eventually.” He’d begun to feel a fizz of excitement, because it was clear that in the next few minutes they would have the answer to all their questions: why his father had been murdered, why he was being followed, why his mother had been sectioned, why an obscure but powerful secret society had taken such a terrifying interest in the Goverton family.

“It was then,”
said Professor Goverton,
“that I made my big breakthrough. Remember our last family holiday together, Em?”

The voice stopped. Em waited for a moment, then said, frowning, “Have you unplugged the speakers?”

Victor shook his head. “No.” He waited a beat, also frowning, before adding, “Is that all?”

Em scrubbed the slider, on purpose this time. His father’s voice came through loud and clear.
“—pandemic after the First World War and so forth—but there was still nothing that matched the words of the prophecy. It was then that I made my big breakthrough. Remember our last family holiday together, Em?”

“Is that it?” Victor asked. “Is that all there is?”

Em was staring at the slider. The tiny icon that represented the playhead had not quite reached the end. He tapped the triangular
PLAY
button and watched the playhead crawl the last few centimeters before stopping again. There was not so much as a breath from the speakers. “Did you check the volume?”

“Volume’s fine,” Victor said.

“You didn’t accidentally mute it, did you?” Charlotte put in.

Em checked. “No.” He replayed a second or two of his father’s voice. “See? It’s working okay. Not mute.” He readjusted, hit the
PLAY
button again.

“It was then that I made my big breakthrough. Remember our last family holiday together, Em?”

“What’s he mean by that?” Charlotte asked. “What has your last family holiday got to do with anything?”

Em looked at her helplessly. “Haven’t the faintest idea,” he said.

Chapter 29

S
ince he hadn’t been planning for the extra guest, Victor insisted they go out for lunch instead of rustle up something in the safe house. The café he picked stood in stark contrast to the coffee bar of that morning. It was jam-packed with student types, and the noise level was through the roof. Victor had to lean across the little table to make himself heard.

“Where did you go on your holidays?”

“Ireland,” Em told him through a forkful of lasagna. He and his parents had driven to Wales and taken the ferry to Rosslare, then endured a further drive west across Ireland to the Beara Peninsula in Kerry, where his mother had organized a holiday cottage rental. His father had been behind the wheel the whole time, with the result that he’d arrived tired and grumpy. He wasn’t the only one, Em recalled. Dad’s driving was pretty lethal on a motorway. On the narrow, potholed country roads of Kerry, it was positively terrifying.

“How was it?” Charlotte asked. “I mean, did anything unusual happen?”

“It was okay,” Em replied without enthusiasm.

“What did you do?” Victor put in.

Em shrugged. “This and that.”

Victor glared at him. “Come on, Em! This isn’t a social inquiry. Your father was trying to tell you something on that iPod, and the clue is in your holiday. I’m going to quiz you until we find out what. Better get used to it.”

It was fair enough. But the problem was, Em couldn’t think of anything out of the ordinary that had happened on the holiday. It wasn’t a patch on France where he’d been followed and got to see Paris and visited the very room in which Nostradamus made his prophecies. But he knew Victor wasn’t going to let him alone; and under the circumstances, he also knew he should be cooperating instead of pouting like a spoiled kid. Which wasn’t likely to impress Charlotte either. He took a deep breath. “Okay. Mum rented a thatched cottage in Kerry. We drove across. It wasn’t fun. Getting to Wales takes four hours, then the ferry takes four hours, then getting to Kerry takes four hours. Too much time in a car and the ferry crossing was rough. Dad couldn’t find the cottage even though they’d sent a map, so we were late and then there was some mix-up about the fridge that was supposed to be stocked but wasn’t so we had to go off looking for a restaurant that was still open. Mum and Dad bickered the whole time; and when we did find a place to eat, Mum drank too much wine.”

“Did it get any better after that?”

It had, actually. They had slept the sleep of the terminally exhausted and woke feeling wonderfully refreshed. They’d gone out to explore and found a funny little supermarket near a crossroads where they loaded up on gossip and supplies. They came back to the cottage and had a fried breakfast together outside on the tiny veranda to celebrate the fact that the sun had come out. Even Mum had looked cheerful. Em actually smiled at the memory. “Yes, it did.”

“So what did you do? What was the highlight of the trip?”

What they’d done was not a lot, really. There was a sculpture garden open to the public that was really cool. And Mum had insisted on buying Em a sports jacket that wasn’t exactly
cool
but was okay for something your mother would pick. Was that the highlight of the trip? It was difficult to say. The real highlight, he supposed, was that Dad was there to talk to him for a change and that Dad and Mum didn’t argue very much. “Dad took a lot of photographs,” Em said inconsequentially.

“What?” Charlotte sat up, suddenly interested. She glanced at Victor.

“Pictures,” Em repeated, frowning. He glanced from one to the other. “He had a new digital camera. I don’t know if he bought it for himself or somebody gave it to him. But it was the first time he took it out, and he was very newfangled with it. He took pictures of everything we did.
Everything.
The trouble was, he didn’t have a printer—Dad was funny about a lot of new technology—so we never saw the pictures. Except on the camera, of course. While we were there, he was always showing us stuff on the camera screen: ‘Look at this, look at that, see the shadow of that seagull.’”

Now Victor was looking interested. “Where is the camera now? Do you know?”

“At home,” Em said, thought about it, then corrected himself. “No, last I heard, he’d taken it to the university.”

“We need to get that camera,” Victor said.

Em frowned. “Why?”

“Communications device,” Victor said shortly.

Charlotte, who seemed to be following what was going on a lot better than Em, said, “Your father asks if you remember the holiday. His camera contains a record of that holiday. If there’s a clue to the mystery in the holiday, we’re going to find it on the camera. Or at least you are. Don’t you see what he was doing, Em?”

Em shook his head and mouthed a bewildered No
,
since that was as good a way as any of talking over the background din.

Victor leaned closer to take up her point. “He had something to tell you, something he couldn’t even trust with your mother. He must have known he was being watched, being followed, under threat or whatever, so he couldn’t just write you a note—might be intercepted and read, which would give the game away. So he had to find a way of telling you that nobody else would know about. He starts by sending you an early birthday gift—nice little iPod touch MP3 player. Music machine—all the kids have them. Not something you’d immediately think of as a way of passing a message. Clever man, your father.”

Em said, “What do we do now?”

“Get our hands on that camera,” Charlotte and Victor said in unison.

“How do we do that?”

“You say it’s at the university?” Victor asked.

“I said
likely
at the university. I don’t know where else it could be.”

Victor spotted a passing waitress and snapped, “Bill, please.” Somehow she heard him above the noise and acknowledged his request with a smile. He turned back to Em. “Your father has an office there or something? A filing cabinet where he keeps things?”

“Office and rooms,” Em said. “Where he can see students one-on-one.” He realized with a dull jolt that they were talking about his father in the present tense, as if he were still alive. His father
had
had an office. His father didn’t have an office at the university anymore, because his father was
dead.
“Wait a minute,” he said to Victor, “I can’t just walk in and claim it. They’re still after me.”

“I wasn’t thinking of you claiming it; I was thinking of breaking in.”

“What?” Em exclaimed. Despite the noise, he lowered his voice. “What?” he repeated.

“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Victor said. The waitress was en route to their table, carrying a slip of paper on a saucer. He opened his wallet and extracted notes for the bill.

“But you don’t even know where the office is,” Em protested.

“That’s why you’re coming with me,” Victor told him.

“Me too,” Charlotte said.