The Secret Prophecy (4 page)

Chapter 10

I
t took Em nearly an hour to find his way to the Musée d’Orsay. Although it wasn’t far from the Louvre, he’d forgotten he had to cross the river again and wasted time wandering along various mysterious
rue
s before he plucked up the courage to ask directions in French. By contrast with the Louvre, there were no queues at any of the four entrances; but to his dismay there was no sign of Charlotte waiting outside either.

He hung around for a few minutes wondering what to do. He’d taken the wink to mean she was all right; and the man in the linen suit had certainly seemed to have his hands full. But suppose Em had misread the scene? Suppose Charlotte had been in trouble and he’d simply run away, leaving her to it?

A more likely, but only slightly less disturbing thought occurred to him. Suppose she was waiting for him
inside
the museum?

This whole little adventure, which was just supposed to be an hour or so exploring Paris, had turned into a bit of a nightmare. He’d run away from a café without paying. There was a strange man following him. (A strange man known to carry a
gun,
a voice in his mind reminded him.) He had only twenty-two euros in his pocket, and he had no idea how much admission to the Musée d’Orsay might be. Why couldn’t girls just do what they said they’d do and wait outside the entrance?

He walked hesitantly inside and then took his courage in his hands and marched up to the ticket desk.
“Combien?”
he asked.

The ticket clerk was a matronly woman who looked at him benignly.
“Quel âge avez vous, jeune homme?”

What age? Em licked his lips.
“J’ai . . . ,”
he said hesitantly. That was right, wasn’t it? The French said “I
have
so many years” not “I
am
so many years.” He watched the woman’s face for signs of confusion.
“J’ai moins de dix-huit ans.”

The woman smiled.
“Ensuite, l’entrée est gratuite.”

Em stared at her for a moment, then smiled back.

He found Charlotte on a bench outside the library room. She jumped to her feet the moment she saw him. “Where have you
been
? I’ve been sitting here for
hours
!”

“Are you all right?” Em asked. Then, without waiting for her to answer, “What happened?”

Charlotte grinned. “I spilled coffee on his lap, then when he got cross, I told the waiters he was threatening me.” She pursed her lips mischievously. “It was all a big misunderstanding.”

“And you’re sure he didn’t follow you here?”

“Absolutely,” Charlotte said. “I was long gone before the waiters were finished with him. By the way, you owe me three euros twenty-five—I paid for your drink.” She reached for his hand and drew him down beside her on the bench. “Now you must tell me what this is all about. Tell me everything.”

She looked at him expectantly; and Em, with a sudden flooding of relief, told her everything.

“Your mother thinks your Dad was
murdered
?” Charlotte asked incredulously when he finally ground to a halt.

Em nodded miserably.

“Was he?”

Em shook his head vigorously. “No, of course not. He just caught some sort of superbug.”

“Then why would your mum think he was?”

That was the thing Em hadn’t mentioned. He took a deep breath. “Mum hasn’t really been the same since Dad died.”

To his surprise she didn’t even pursue it. Instead she said soberly, “That man was carrying a gun at your father’s funeral. Even if your dad wasn’t murdered, there’s
something
going on.”

Of course there was something going on! His father had died when he was supposed to be getting better. There were strangers at the funeral—not just the man with the gun, but lots of other people he didn’t know. His father’s study was ransacked—not their whole home, the way you’d expect from burglars, but just the study. And now Em was being followed . . . all the way to France. Why? He could only nod helplessly.

Charlotte took charge at once. “Well, the first thing obviously is to find out what’s going on. Until you do that, there’s not much else you can do. You need to
mount an investigation.
” She made it sound as if he was a government department with all the resources of the nation behind him. He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him short. “We can do it together, if you like.”

Em closed his mouth again. He was an only child; his mother had her own worries; and his father, when he was alive, had been a very busy academic. Em had become so used to doing things on his own that he scarcely noticed it. Now he felt an entirely unexpected emotion: a flooding warmth, combined with gratitude and something that could only be surprise. “Would you really?” he asked.

“Would I really what?”

“Help me.”

“I’ve already helped you,” Charlotte said. “Who do you think poured the coffee on the rude man’s lap?”

The
rude
man? That was how Charlotte thought of a threatening figure with dark glasses and a gun? Despite everything, Em felt the ghost of a smile begin to crawl across his face. He pushed it away in case she misunderstood and said seriously, “You know this could be dangerous.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Charlotte said, and continued to look at him.

“All right,” Em said. “Yes, sorry, thank you. Yes, I’d like your help, thank you, if that’s all right.” He hesitated. “Where do we start?”

“With
Whistler’s Mother
,” Charlotte said.

He stared at her.

“I’ve always wanted to see the original,” Charlotte told him. “They have it here somewhere.”

They walked between the two stone lions and up a short flight of steps into the main body of the museum. “What did your father do?” Charlotte asked.

“You know what he did. Taught late medieval and Renaissance history at the university.”

“No, when he wasn’t teaching. Did he have any strange hobbies or interests . . . ?”

“You think this has something to do with my father?”

“It was his funeral the strange people turned up at,” Charlotte said, “including the one who followed us today. You may not have known them, but you can be sure he did. Or rather, you can be sure they knew him. Was he working with other people on some project, maybe outside the university?”

Em shook his head, frowning. “Not that I know of. All he seemed to think about was Nostradamus. He was writing a book about him.”

“The prophet Nostradamus? The one who predicted the Twin Towers?”

Em shook his head again. “That was a fake—just something that went around the internet.”

“So he was no good?”

“No, I don’t mean Nostradamus was a fake. The Twin Towers thing was a fake; somebody wrote the prophecy after it happened and put Nostradamus’s name on it to make it look good. Actually, Nostradamus seems to have been okay. He definitely made some prophecies that came true.”

“Did he think he ever made an accurate prophecy about the present day?” Charlotte asked. “I mean, like who’s going to be the next president of the United States, or whether there’ll be another war in the Middle East or something?”

“Dad was very wary about stuff like that,” Em said seriously. “He used to say it was easy to find a prediction
after
the event. I mean, you could take something crazy like Sarah Palin winning the Nobel Prize for logic, then go through all the prophecies—Nostradamus wrote hundreds of them—and find one you could make fit. But it’s another thing to find a prophecy that tells you clearly
in advance
that Sarah Palin is going to do something or other. Know what I mean?”

“I think so,” Charlotte said doubtfully.

“What Dad was getting at—” Em began, then stopped, frowning. “You don’t think whatever’s going on has something to do with Nostradamus, do you?”

“I think it has something to do with your father,” Charlotte said. “And since you say his only interest was Nostradamus, then maybe it does have something to do with him.”

“I don’t see how . . . ,” Em told her honestly.

“Neither do I,” Charlotte said, “but just suppose this book your father was writing was, like, bestseller material, the most popular book about Nostradamus
ever
; and some publisher was going to buy it for millions. Maybe the man with the coffee stain wants to steal the manuscript and pass it off as his own so he makes the millions.”

“Not very likely.” The most any of his dad’s books had ever sold was just short of two thousand copies. None of them made even thousands of pounds, let alone millions.

“It would fit in with the robbery. Or rather the not-robbery. They only went into your father’s study, and they were obviously searching for something. You say there was nothing missing, but did you actually check on the manuscript?”

Em hadn’t actually checked on anything. That was something else he’d left to his mother. “Not as such,” Em said uncertainly.

“Doesn’t matter,” Charlotte told him. “I doubt they have it anyway.”

“How do you know?”

“If they got what they wanted, they wouldn’t still be following us.” Charlotte stopped suddenly. “Oh look,” she said. “There’s
Whistler’s Mother.
”

Chapter 11

T
om Peterson wasn’t a particularly good-looking man, but he had one of those fresh, plump, open faces that people instinctively liked and trusted. At the moment it was frowning slightly. “Why the sudden interest in Nostradamus?” he asked as he negotiated a forkful of mussels into his mouth.

Charlotte shrugged casually. They’d decided, after a long discussion, not to tell him the whole story, not to tell him anything about being followed; but he’d still been Em’s father’s best friend and might know something useful. “No reason,” she said. “Just wondering what you thought of Nostradamus. Like, could he have made predictions about the present day? Could he have made real predictions at all?” She glanced briefly at Em.

“Actually, there is a reason,” Em put in. He felt uncomfortable cutting Tom out of the loop, but both he and Charlotte were worried that Tom might not believe the story about men with guns and being followed. Somehow it all seemed too much like a paperback thriller. Em licked his lips. “My dad was writing a book about him before he died. I wondered if he ever showed it to you?”

“Oh, his famous
Life of Nostradamus
? He used to bore us all silly about it on the faculty. He showed me an early draft of the first few chapters, but that was years ago. Are you interested in the subject, Em?”

“Sort of,” Em said vaguely.

They were together in the dining hall of their hotel, a smallish room with highly polished tables and flocked wallpaper. The only other people in the place were an elderly couple seated near the window and a family group of four by the door who chatted loudly in French.

“Did he ever talk to you about the secret prophecy?” Tom asked him.

Em looked at him blankly. “What secret prophecy?”

Tom took a sip of his Pouilly-Fuissé—he’d ordered a half bottle for himself and a liter of Coca-Cola for Charlotte and Em—and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “He mentioned something to me once about finding a secret prophecy by Nostradamus. One that didn’t appear in any of his published works. I thought he might have said something to you about it, but obviously he didn’t.”

“No . . . ,” Em said thoughtfully. A secret prophecy sounded intriguing. “What did he tell you?”

A mildly pained look crossed Tom’s face. “I don’t remember exactly. I think he said he’d come across some sixteenth-century documents that referred to an unpublished prophecy. They couldn’t have been Nostradamus originals—otherwise it would have been all over the newspapers—but he was still pretty excited. I suppose he thought he might be on the track of something.”

“What was the prophecy about?”

“Didn’t say. May not have known himself; the documents could just have referred to the fact that one existed. Not that it matters; if the documents were sixteenth century, they were contemporary with Nostradamus. That has to be a bit of an academic coup.”

“Where did he find them? The documents?”

“I don’t know that either. He’d just come back from a trip to France when he told me about them, so I’d imagine it was somewhere in this country.” Tom hesitated. “He never mentioned any of it to you?”

“Not a word.”

“And there’s nothing in his manuscript about it? You must have seen a much more up-to-date version than I did.”

Em’s starter had arrived, a curious concoction of leeks in a cream sauce. He poked at it listlessly. Dad would have been delighted if Em had read his manuscript; but the awful thing was, neither Em nor his mum was all that interested. Not really. It was cool to have a father who wrote books, of course, even academic books; but that didn’t mean you actually had to like them. It would have been different if he’d written something really interesting, like science fiction or vampire stories; but a biography of some creepy old prophet? Give me a break. Both Em and his mum had humored him, listened when he’d read them bits aloud, even encouraged him to read them more sometimes; but the bottom line was, Tom had probably seen more of the manuscript than Em and his mum put together. Em racked his brain trying to remember if there had been any mention of a secret prophecy in the bits Dad had read aloud and decided there hadn’t. “I don’t think so,” he said uncertainly to Tom. “But he never showed me the whole book.”

Tom said, “He must have kept research notes somewhere. Maybe the documents he found are with them. Copies of them anyway.”

Em tried the leeks, which tasted better than they looked. The silence suddenly impinged, and he realized Tom was looking at him questioningly. “Notes?” Em echoed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

“But you don’t know where they are?”

“No,” Em admitted.

“Of course you had that break-in,” Tom said. “The thieves may have taken them.”

Em couldn’t think why. What thief would be interested in a bunch of academic notes? “We don’t think anything was taken,” Em said. “At least nothing obvious.” But he and his mum had been thinking about valuables, not papers. And besides, papers could be in his father’s desk at the university. A wave of black depression washed over him. None of this would be tackled until the reading of his father’s will. And that wouldn’t happen before Em got back home, because his mum and Uncle Harold—the two named executors—hadn’t yet sorted out the estate. There were, they said, a lot of bits and pieces. You could bet your bottom dollar any papers would be among them.

Tom finished his mussels and sat back. “Know what? We could make a little project, Em—a sort of commemoration of your father. If you’re interested . . .”

“Daddy, his father’s only just died!”

“Let Em speak for himself, darling,” Tom said softly.

“What sort of project?” Em asked.

“Well, you know I want you both to come to my symposium tomorrow? I realize it’s going to bore the socks off you—”

“Then why insist we come?” Charlotte put in quickly.

“Because there’s no way I’m prepared to let two teenagers run loose in Paris without supervision,” Tom told her bluntly. “At least I can keep an eye on you at the symposium. But we’re driving south the day after; and to make up, I thought you might enjoy seeing Salon-de-Provence. Especially you, Em.”

Em looked at him blankly. “Yes, sure. I mean, cool.”

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Sure. Well . . . actually . . . no, not really.” The name Salon rang a bell somewhere, but he couldn’t get a fix on it.

“Salon was where Nostradamus lived and wrote his prophecies. The house is still there, Em. I thought you might like to visit it.”

“Cool,” Em said again; and this time he meant it.

He was in his room after supper, preparing for bed, when there was a soft knocking at his door. Em hastily pulled on the hotel dressing gown and opened the door. Charlotte was standing outside.

“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” she demanded after a moment’s silence.

For some reason Em found himself blushing. “I was going to bed.”

“I just thought it would be a good idea to talk about the Nostradamus thing,” Charlotte told him. “We mightn’t get a chance tomorrow.” She went across and sat on the edge of his bed, effectively stopping him from going near it. Em pulled the bedside chair a safe distance from her and sat down on it. He crossed his legs carefully, trying to look casual.

“Go on then,” he urged. “Talk.”

“Aren’t you excited?” Charlotte asked.

“Why? I mean, why particularly?”

“Weren’t you listening to my dad over dinner? This is the reason you’re being followed. This explains the whole thing!”

“Does it?”

“Well, it might!” she snapped impatiently. “It’s like we were saying about somebody trying to get his book because it’s worth millions, only it’s not his
manuscript
that’s valuable; it’s this secret prophecy he discovered. Somebody found out about it—well, he talked to people, didn’t he?—and they wanted to steal it.” She gave him a sorrowful look. “Maybe somebody really did murder your father. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“It’s not the only thing that makes sense.”

“Why not?”

Em sighed again. “First of all, my dad
didn’t
find a secret prophecy by Nostradamus. He only found some documents that referred to one—that’s all he told your dad. And like your dad says, he probably didn’t even have the documents himself; he probably found them in some dusty old library and copied them: Xerox or something. And even if he did have the original documents, they wouldn’t be worth millions. They might cause a bit of a stir in academic circles, but academics don’t have that sort of money. They might be worth a few hundred at most, not worth killing somebody for.”

But Charlotte wouldn’t let it go. “Yes, but suppose your dad found the actual prophecy. In Nostradamus’s own handwriting. That would be like finding a new play by Shakespeare. That’s bound to be worth millions.”

It was an exaggeration, but she had a point. A new prophecy in Nostradamus’s own handwriting could be worth a lot of money. Had his dad found one? Whatever Charlotte said, Em couldn’t quite believe he’d been killed for it. That really didn’t make much sense.

Charlotte was speaking again. “Here’s how I see it. Your father is researching his book on Nostradamus. He takes a trip to France and comes across a book that mentions a prophecy he doesn’t recognize. It’s an exciting find, but not all that exciting. He tells my dad about it and probably a few others. Why shouldn’t he? All he’s talking about is a reference in some old French library. But then he gets to thinking. Suppose he could find the
actual
prophecy, the original parchment? Now that would be something really cool. That would make him rich and famous. He could probably sell it to a museum, and it would make his book a bestseller. So he goes off looking for it.
And he finds it!
At least he finds out where it is. He doesn’t tell anybody—not my dad, not your mother. He wants to have the original parchment in his hands before he makes the big announcement. But there’s somebody else after the prophecy as well, and he kills your father to stop him from finding it first. What do you think?”

“I think you’d make a good thriller writer,” Em said sourly. “What you’re really saying is, my dad’s a thief. If he found the original prophecy, he had to find it
somewhere
: in a library or somebody’s collection of papers. Either way, he’d have had to steal it if he wanted to sell it and get rich the way you said. But if he stole it, he
couldn’t
sell it because he’d need to establish provenance before any museum would touch it. It would be like trying to sell the
Mona Lisa
: it’s just too well-known for anybody to want to buy it. Besides which, Dad wasn’t murdered. He got sick.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“Oh, Charlotte—”

Charlotte held up her hands. “All right, all right, maybe he just died. By coincidence. But I’ll tell you one thing. Somebody thinks he found the original of the Nostradamus prophecy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because they broke into his study looking for it. I’m absolutely sure of it. Your dad wasn’t a thief—I know that. I shouldn’t have said that stuff about him selling it and getting rich: I didn’t think it through. But somebody else might not have been so ethical: maybe a collector or somebody who knows a collector who would buy it. So they broke in looking for it. They didn’t find it then, and now they think you might have it. Or at least know where it is. That’s why they’re following you. They probably think you’ll lead them straight to it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Em said.

Charlotte sniffed. “You’ll see. Day after tomorrow you’re heading for Nostradamus’s hometown. Think how
that’s
going to look to them.”