Jake fished out the pages. Printed text was arranged in columns and Queen Victoria warded off a Russian bear in caricature; the year was 1848. He was holding several pages of Punch magazine, illicit reading for a former Constable of the Tower.
The sound of Jenny laughing loudly at some wisecrack tore Jake back to the present and he tried to replace the plank. But the damn thing wouldn’t fit. He stamped on the board – it snapped into position – and his shoulders slumped with relief.
Then he realized Punch was lying on the floor.
Jake fiddled the pages through the cracks and replaced the poker as Sir Richard strode into the room. The general ambled to the window and gazed out at his fiefdom. The broken plank was right under his nose; it looked horribly conspicuous to Jake. But Sir Richard was studying his minions, on the lookout for shirkers, and the intruders used the hiatus in his attention to carry out a silent conversation.
Jenny raised her eyebrows, head jutting forward. Well?
Jake smiled, with a half-shake of his head. Nada.
She pivoted both hands. What now?
He shrugged. Search me.
“Chap down there taking an awful lot of interest in Queen’s House,” observed Sir Richard. “Funny little fat man.”
Jake ignored him; Jenny had gone oddly still.
“Still, he’s got a cracker of a wife,” Sir Richard went on. “Quite the filly. Lovely silvery hair. Amazing how some chaps do it. I suppose he’s an enormously wealthy stockbroker or something.” The general laughed in disgust at the thought. “Are we done then? I’ve got a tower to be running.”
Jenny didn’t seem to have heard him – she was looking straight up.
“I said, my dear, are we almost done?”
“No,” said Jenny. “No, I’d say not. You’ve probably got a few more questions to ask, right Jake?”
The journalist sighed, a man defeated. “I think I’ve got enough material to be honest.”
“Right, excellent,” said Sir Richard, slapping his thighs. “I’ll see you out then. When do you plan on publication?”
But Jenny ignored the question. “Jake – are you sure you don’t have more questions?”
“Completely sure.”
She glared at him. “But you normally ask a few more questions.”
“Do I?” he said. “Do I?”
Then he noticed: Jenny was staring him in the face and rolling her eyes towards the ceiling, Sir Richard oblivious to the gesture. When Jake followed her gaze he physically jolted.
Carved into one of the planks were the initials R.W.R.H.
“Actually I wouldn’t mind a few more snaps,” Jenny told the general. “Just to be on the safe side. If you’d be good enough to escort me again?”
Her mouth twitched flirtatiously.
“Well, if you insist …”
As the general departed he shot Jake the look of the conqueror-to-be. Jake snatched up the poker and dragged an armchair under the initialled spot. The plank was held in place by two blackened nails – they protruded from the wood, as if they had been removed and pushed back by hand. He plucked them out and squeezed the poker through the cracks, levering a two-inch gap between the planks, then pushed his hand through to feel splintery wood. The poker slipped, clattering to the floor, and the beam snapped down on his hand. The vandal emitted a silent scream.
Jake was trapped: one hand in the ceiling, the blood cut off from his fingers, the poker out of reach. Without it he wasn’t strong enough to prize up the plank, so he wrenched out his hand, skinning his fingers. The plank snapped shut.
There was no time to consider the pain. Jake grabbed the loose brick from the fireplace and repeated the process, slammed the brick into the gap this time. It held. Jake thrust his forearm into the compartment between the ceiling and the floor above until the flesh was squeezed white. His fingers brushed against something dry and brittle, something that crinkled to the touch.
Jake felt his bladder go weak: it was paper.
Now he had two fingers on the bundle and he paddled it towards the gap, clods of black swept in its wake, spilling into the room. Jake coughed as the detritus fell, swaying on the armchair. A corner of yellow protruded from the ceiling and he snatched it into daylight.
The papyri in his hands dated indisputably from antiquity; they were the colour of over-stewed tea and crumbled to the touch. The letters were Roman and at once Jake saw the name of the scribe.
EUSEBIUS.
Below it he recognized another name.
TAGES.
Imprinted alongside the ancient text were a series of pink stamps: a swastika, an Eagle, the words ‘Streng Geheim’. Jake felt the room constrict around him. His throat felt raw and there was a throbbing in his ears. He was holding in his arms a full and unabridged copy of the Disciplina Etrusca.