16

‘So, Nick,’ Verity said, the cold air condensing her breath as the three of them hurried back to Julius’s office through Radcliffe Square. ‘There’s conjecture that the Portuguese visited the shores of western Australia, well before any other Europeans. They had settled in Timor before 1520, using it as a trading base to the Spice Islands. Timor is only 285 miles from the northern shores of western Australia. It is inconceivable that this incredible seafaring nation, who had travelled around the world in their caravels, would not explore the surrounding seas over the next ninety years prior to the arrival of the Dutch in 1606.’

Nick and Julius listened intently as Verity warmed to her subject. ‘They had a zeal for exploration and discovery and a desire to bring riches back to Portugal. Any reasonable person would assume that the short distance to the Australian coastline would have been made on numerous occasions.’

‘Correct,’ joined in Julius. ‘Many other seafarers made use of Timor for rest and recreation and to replenish their supplies over the next three centuries. Dampier, the Englishman, stopped there in 1696 and made a seemingly casual decision to take a short trip over to western Australia. Captain Bligh made it to Timor, in an open boat, after his crew mutinied off eastern Australia. Freycinet and Flinders both called in. In fact, Captain George Grey used Timor to replenish his supplies when he was starting his famous exploration of the Kimberley district in north-western Australia in 1838. This distance of under three hundred miles was not considered a great deal, even in the times of sailing boats and less sophistication.’

‘All right, that makes sense,’ said Nick, ‘but if they did journey to Australia, where are the maps?’

‘Well,’ said Verity, ‘that’s a question which has confounded experts for generations and has caused great controversy. The publication of maps was a secret business for the Portuguese. Their explorers had discovered sea routes to previously unknown and unexplored parts of the world, including the lucrative Spice Islands. The exotic spices found there had become a massive earner for Portugal by the mid 1500s and it was imperative to keep this information secret. The Portuguese King, Henry the Navigator, had established a central authority for managing all aspects of overseas trade. This was called the Casa da India and was so important that its offices were in the Ribeira Palace in Lisbon. Its purpose was to collate all new discoveries made by the intrepid explorers and to provide the pilot maps for future explorations.’

‘I can see it made commercial sense to keep this information secret, but I imagine it was very difficult,’ said Nick.

‘Exactly, and this was the problem,’ continued Verity. ‘The most famous of these secret and collated maps was the Padrao Real. This was the master world map with all the new and secret discoveries made by the Portuguese. To the horror of the Portuguese, a copy of this valuable map turned up in Italy in 1502. It had been provided by an Italian trader sent to Lisbon by the Duke of Ferrara, with the specific brief to spy on the Portuguese and to steal their prized information. This he did by bribing a mapmaker at the Casa da India to make a copy of the map.’

‘Things don’t change,’ said Nick. ‘The same things still happen today.’

‘Absolutely. Afterwards, there was a complete shutdown of information. Watertight systems were put into place to prevent any further leakage of secrets. From then on, this information was consolidated in the hands of very few trusted people, mostly from the royal family. Furthermore, everybody who worked in the Casa da India had to be vetted first and was under the threat of death for revealing the secrets held within the palace walls.’

‘So I see what you are getting at,’ said Nick, ‘hence the lack of information today.’

‘That’s right. This is not to say that snippets of information did not filter out, through sailors talking in ports around the world and the odd map turning up, but the overall picture stayed secret. However, any hope of modern historians discovering their maps was extinguished in the great earthquake in Lisbon in 1755. This earthquake, which was about nine on the Richter scale, and the subsequent tsunami and fires that raged for five days, destroyed over eighty per cent of the city. It killed over 20,000 people. It was a major human catastrophe. The royal archives were completely destroyed, together with detailed historical records of explorations by Vasco da Gama and all the other early navigators, including those who travelled to Timor. Since there were no copies due to the secrecy surrounding the maps, the information was lost to history forever.’

As Nick, Verity and Julius passed through the dark shadows of the Church of St Mary The Virgin and into the streetlights of High and Oriel Street junction, they were deep in conversation. Only the occupants of a black Mercedes parked on the south corner of the junction took any notice of the three as they went through the Gothic arched entrance that led up to Julius’s rooms.

‘Dear Lord!’ exclaimed Julius, as he pushed the door open.

If Nick had thought the room was messy before they left, it paled compared to what he saw now. Every book and file had been violently flung from their shelves and were strewn around the floor; empty drawers from the filing cabinets lay astride the jumbled, printed mess. Even Julius’s old couch had not been spared, its upholstery shredded, the foam and fabric spilling out like a gutted fish.

‘My God!’ stuttered Nick. ‘What a bloody mess!’

Julius stepped through the door, eyes flicking everywhere. He frantically started gathering up loose sheets of paper, searching for matching files, stumbling over books and documents in his blind panic.

‘Dad, stop a second,’ said Verity, noticing the way her father was behaving. ‘Let’s clear all the desks first of all to make some space, then we can slowly reorganise everything.’

Julius didn’t seem to hear his daughter for a few seconds and continued to stagger over the mess, then slowly he came to a halt, as if defeated by the task. ‘I can’t understand why anybody would do this,’ he said sadly. ‘Were they looking for money?

‘I don’t understand it either, Dad, but I don’t think it’s about money. Whoever did this was searching for something specific.’

‘What? You think the Bunting stuff?’ Nick could hardly believe that. ‘But … but how would anyone know I was here? The only other person apart from you who knew I was coming up to Oxford was Bronte.’ Suddenly a frightening possibility occurred to Nick. ‘I’ve got to call to make sure she’s okay.’

‘Someone may have followed you,’ offered Verity as she began replacing books on a shelf.

Nick dialled numbers and listened. Then he dialled more numbers. He waited. ‘Christ!’ he said at last, obviously frustrated. ‘I can’t get her on any of her numbers!’ He stabbed at his phone, eking out a text message. ‘I’d better get back to London to check on her!’

‘Good idea,’ agreed Julius, now recovering from the initial shock and following his daughter’s organisational lead. ‘Verity, why don’t you go with Nicholas? I’ll have this place shipshape in half an hour anyway and I think Nicholas could do with the company. I’ll continue to read Itinerarium and see what else I can glean.’

‘If that’s okay with you, Nick,’ said Verity, ‘I can explain the different theories of Portuguese discovery of Australia fifty years before the Dutch.’

‘Great, I look forward to it,’ Nick said quickly, pleased to have such beautiful company, ‘but more importantly you can keep an eye out for speed cameras!’