Chapter 13

Beer and Necromancy

July 2: London

Bathmore was nowhere to be seen when I burst out the door. I started back, retracing the route I had taken while following him. The houseboats were still out on the canal. I walked fast but did not see him ahead of me. He could have taken a different route or maybe he wasn’t headed home. If I didn’t find him I would have to head back to my rental and keep watch, hoping he would show up. My intuition told me he still had the notes. He had been keeping them at the space he rented for giving music lessons and working on breaking the enigma there. By bad luck I had followed him there a day too late. He had cleared out, knowing he would be evicted the next day and any belongings left in the room either discarded or held until he paid his back rent. I should have gone there the night before. Hopefully, he would take the notes home. I would have to break into his apartment again the next time he went out. He had to be trying to solve the enigma in order to get the reward from Jutting. He must have learned about it while working for the tycoon. Maybe he had an extra motivation. Maybe he believed he had been treated unfairly by Jutting and wanted to be the one to find the solution so he could get some kind of revenge in addition to the reward. It was speculation but it fit what I had seen and the clues I had gathered. He might be getting desperate though. He was behind on all his bills, he had been evicted from the space he presumably used to pursue his only money making vocation. He must be in danger of losing his apartment as well. I hoped he wasn’t desperate enough to contact Jutting and try to sell the notes. It would be infinitely more difficult to steal them from a billionaire surrounded by bodyguards and private security. For a member of the highest class of the global elite, his house had looked modest from the outside. I had no doubt it was not modest on the inside. He almost certainly had the best security money could buy. It wouldn’t be like breaking into Carlu Ortoli’s house. Carlu Ortoli was merely wealthy. Jutting was on a different plane of existence.

I reached the Bethnal Green station still without having caught sight of Bathmore, walked up and down the platform rapidly, scanning the crowd, looking for that burgundy backpack. No luck. I had lost him. My only option was to return to my temporary home and wait. I rode the trains back to Hammersmith, thinking. I still wanted to pursue a meeting with Jutting if possible. If Bathmore turned over the notes as I feared he might I would need to know as much as possible about Jutting’s residence and business. When I emerged from Hammersmith station I paused out of the flow of human traffic and called the number Gabrielle’s father had given me for Ortoli. It was an answering service. I had placed calls to the number twice before. The first time had been to arrange our initial meeting at Ortoli’s Genoese villa, the second to arrange a rendezvous to turn over the painting to him.

“Pronto,” said the voice I recognized from the last time—a deep, slightly raspy, female voice.

“Hello,” I answered in my faltering Italian. “I would like to leave a message for Signore Ortoli.”

I left my name and phone number and the woman assured me he would call me back within a day. I thanked her, hung up, and jumped back into the stream of pedestrians. Two doors down, I veered back out of the crowd and made a quick stop at a tiny market for a bag of cat food. I had left the living room window open. From there the cat could easily jump to the handrail outside. I hoped he hadn’t disappeared. I liked the cat’s presence. It helped calm my thoughts. As I was paying, it occurred to me that Bathmore’s apartment had been devoid of food and full of takeout containers. The main street outside was lined with bars, coffee shops, and takeout restaurants. Back on the street I peered into each window as I passed, looking for that burgundy backpack. It was more difficult to see into the shops and restaurants across the street but whenever there was a break in the traffic I shot a glance across, checking windows. Half a block from the market I stopped, thinking I had seen something burgundy.

“Watch yourself, tosser.” A man barged past me, giving me a hard bump with his shoulder. I ignored him. There was a pub directly across the road with a dusty window facing the street. It was dim inside but I could see through to the bar and the backs of several customers seated there. One of them was wearing a burgundy backpack.

I walked down to the next light, shoving the cat food into my pack, crossed and hurried back up the street. Cautiously, I opened the door and peered in. It was Bathmore. I entered the pub and walked up to the end of the bar farthest from where he was seated. There were a couple of people between us—a bald man in his fifties who had to be a British Telecom repair man with his yellow jacket and cargo pants and a younger man farther down the bar who had long hair and sported a corduroy jacket with worn leather elbow patches. I wasn’t worried that Bathmore would recognize me. Out of the corner of my eye when I leaned forward or back I could see that he was staring straight ahead, watching his own reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The glass in front of him was nearly empty. His head was lolling slightly as if he was already drunk. The bartender—whose graying buzz cut, lined face, and heavily tattooed forearms indicated he might have attended a few Clash gigs at the Hammersmith Odeon back in the day—approached and I ordered a stout. I wondered how many Bathmore had consumed already. He couldn’t have had enough time to drink more than one or two. I got my phone out and pretended to read, heading off any potential conversations with strangers while I kept an eye on Bathmore. He drank another pint, nursing it for fifteen minutes while I took occasional sips of mine. An old CRT television up in a corner behind the bar played a grainy rugby match. I had no understanding of rugby. I tried to make out the rules while stealing glances down the bar. Bathmore’s phone was on the counter and he kept checking it every few minutes as if he was expecting a call or a text message. Suddenly it buzzed and began vibrating. He reached for it and stood unsteadily while swiping to answer the call, put a coaster over his beer, and walked out, mumbling into the phone.

I got up and wandered over. He stood outside the front door, leaning on it. I could see the back of his head through the small window in the door. Just inside was a little bulletin board. A flyer advertising the pub’s quiz night was tacked to the board. I read it over while straining to hear Bathmore—every Sunday starting at eight PM, maximum team size six. Bathmore wasn’t speaking. He was standing with his head down, phone pressed to his ear, listening. In profile, he looked very young although I knew he had to be in his mid to late twenties. He raised his head finally and spoke. I strained to hear him over the traffic noise from the street and caught just a few words.

“…got any money…understand…yes, of course…”

I walked back to my spot at the bar, frustrated. Bathmore’s caller must have been one of his many creditors. Or was he arranging to sell the notes? I couldn’t tell. He came in a moment later and sat back down. Once again I waited, watching the rugby while Bathmore drank another beer. He had to be very drunk by this time unless his tolerance to alcohol was superhuman. He had consumed at least four pints in the space of an hour. Finally, he motioned for another beer and the bartender just shook his head.

“You’ve had enough, lad. Go eat something and sleep it off.”

Bathmore didn’t argue. He stood, steadying himself with a hand on his stool, then walked with as much dignity as he could muster. His face was puffy and white with a sheen of sweat. I waited thirty seconds then followed him out the door just in time to see him turn the corner at the end of the block. He was moving slowly and I caught up to him easily. We were two blocks from his building. I kept a distance, not worried about losing him. When I turned down the street he lived on he was half a block ahead of me. I slowed. I didn’t need to catch up. I only needed to see that he made it home. It would be another waiting game after that.

I watched him stumble, turning toward the walkway that led to the building entrance. Just then, the driver door of a van parked on the street swung open, slamming into Bathmore and knocking him down. He fell like a log, completely dazed. A man in a black bomber jacket jumped from the open side door of the van, rolled Bathmore over, and began tugging the backpack off his limp arms. I hesitated for a moment then ran toward the two struggling figures. Before I was halfway there, the man got the backpack away from Bathmore and began kicking him viciously. All I could think was that the notes were in the backpack, I couldn’t let the attacker get away with them. I kept running, accelerating until I was close enough to launch myself at him. We both went down on the sidewalk. The guy felt solid, like tackling a tree trunk. We were both up in an instant. He swung at me. I ducked and pushed the heel of my hand hard into his nose. He moved his head just enough to avoid the worst of the blow but it still made him stagger backward and I felt a sickening crunch of cartilage.

“Get in the fucking van!” I heard someone yell. The man jumped for the open door. I grabbed at a strap of the backpack but it slipped through my fingers as the driver stepped on the gas and the van peeled away. I fumbled my phone out of my pocket and snapped a photo just as they reached the end of the block. Hopefully the license plate would be readable. It was the second time in recent memory that I had watched a van race away from the scene of a crime. The first time, though, the crumpled figure at my feet had been driving the van. I heard Bathmore moan and crouched down.

“Nigel Bathmore,” I said. “My name is Justin Vincent. Sorry I didn’t get here sooner. They got your backpack. Were your keys in there?”

Bathmore shook his head, wincing, and sat up. He reached in his pocket and pulled out his keys. “Got ʼem here,” he mumbled.

“Good. Mind if I help you into your place? I’d like to have a talk.”

“Probably owe you that. Help me up.”

He leaned on my shoulder and we made it up to his apartment. The place had been ransacked. The guys in the van must have searched the apartment top to bottom before deciding to lurk on the street waiting for Bathmore to come home. In the kitchen, all the drawers were pulled out and dumped. Cushions were strewn around the living room. I got the couch put back together and lowered him onto it. He sat there, arms wrapped around his middle, while I switched on lights, replaced utensils and tea towels in the kitchen drawers, and started water for tea. While the water boiled, we called the national health service advice line. It took as long as making and drinking two strong cups of tea but finally we got an advice nurse on the line. Bathmore had received a few good kicks to the side and back and had some bruises but nothing appeared to be broken. The nurse said that he should see a physician immediately if he found blood in his urine but otherwise it would be fine for him to wait until morning to get checked over. By the time Bathmore hung up, he had sobered up considerably. He put his head in his hands, massaging his temples.

“I’m sorry,” he said, raising his eyes to me. “I suppose you know it was me who broke into your place? Is that why you’re here? Why did you save me down there?”

I studied his face. He had the inward looking self-sufficiency of someone who thought of himself as smarter than other people—who had decided early on that other people’s ideas were not to be trusted. His eyes were green and sunken like he had been sleeping poorly for a while. His brown hair was in need of a trim. “Yes, I figured out it was you,” I answered.

“How?”

“First, tell me if Wolhardt’s notes were in your backpack.”

“Yes.”

“The only copy?”

“Of course. Now, how did you find me?”

“A little detective work, some illicit accessing of computer systems.”

“The rental car company?”

“Yes.”

“I was afraid of that. Sorry I broke in. It was useless anyway.”

“Yes, it was. I think I’ve worked out what you’ve been up to. You stole the notes from Wolhardt. You’re trying to solve the enigma so you can collect the reward from Jutting. You used to work for Jutting.”

“That bastard.” Bathmore had what the British would call a posh accent. He said the word bastard with a truly bitter inflection.

“How did you end up working for him anyway? You studied music and mathematics in college, not finance or business.”

Bathmore looked surprised for an instant, then winced again, shifting on the couch. “My aunt got me the job. She’s in finance. Used to work for him too. Didn’t like me being a music teacher. Not fancy enough. What are you anyway? A private investigator of some kind?”

“Something like that,” I said, then stopped speaking for a moment. Something had just struck me. There was another person with whom I had come into contact recently in a similar situation to Bathmore’s—another person who had turned to criminal activity and who lived in a city Bathmore had visited just ten days before. “One more question,” I said. “Are you working with Molly?”

“Molly? You mean James Ringold?”

“Yes.”

“That’s his stupid nickname I guess. Yes, I was working with him. I should have never trusted that asshole.”

“So you two met on that forum and hatched a plan to steal the notes after Wolhardt made his announcement?”

“Pretty much. Although I ended up doing all the work. I went to Los Angeles and stole the notes from Wolhardt. Ringold said he would meet me there but he kept delaying. Finally I just did it myself. Then after you hacked his BBS…”

“How did he know about that?” I interrupted.

“He’s an asshole but he’s not an idiot. And he’s very paranoid. He knew the hacker was in the Bay Area somehow. He asked me to send him the notes again. I refused, again. He tried to convince me to come to San Francisco so we could work on it together and I wouldn’t have to turn over the notes.”

“But you didn’t give him the notes, or a scan or copy?”

“Already told you, no copies. He wanted me to send them to him but I refused. He said he would pay for my plane tickets, the rentals, everything. But he wouldn’t give me the money. Told him I’d send him the notes when he gave me the money. I don’t think he has it.”

“So you’ve been trying to work it out yourself?”

“No good. I’m no cryptographer.” He squeezed his eyes closed and laid his head back in frustration.

“So who were those guys down there? Who knew you had the notes and wanted them badly enough to ambush you?”

“Jutting’s boys undoubtedly. He must have sent them. I contacted him earlier today. Told him I had something that could help solve the enigma. I offered to sell it to him. I need the money. I’m broke. I wanted to solve it myself but I couldn’t wait anymore.”

“So he told you he’d think about it and get back to you?”

“Yes.”

“But instead he sent some rough people to take the notes from you. Nice guy.”

“Not nice. A real cold bastard. Psychopath. I should have known better.”

“Well, you’ve made my job more difficult. Now I have to steal the notes back from him, not you. He has better security. One thing that’s been bothering me is how you knew I was helping Wolhardt. How did you find out? There are only two possibilities I can think of. One, you were still in Los Angeles when I met with him. Or two, Johann Benderick told you.”

Bathmore nodded, appraising me. “Bender thirty-nine. That must be who you mean. He posted in the forum. Said you visited him. Said if anyone in the forum knew anything about the burglary they should tell Wolhardt or you. I didn’t know he was fucking Johann Benderick. That puts a different spin on some things he’s posted. Wolhardt responded and explained that you were helping him search for the stolen notes. By that time I knew what I stole from Wolhardt was old. The guy puts dates on everything. He seems really organized. Maybe he wants to be able to file things chronologically. Anyway, the dates were all from a few months ago before he posted that he was close to a solution. The method is pretty good but it needs tweaking. The solution is wrong. I went back to Los Angeles. I was going to go talk to him and see if he would join forces with me. But then I got the message and decided to go up to San Francisco and check you out instead. I thought maybe Wolhardt would have given his materials to you to keep safe.”

This last part didn’t ring true to me. I didn’t believe Bathmore was going to talk to Wolhardt. He had probably planned on breaking in again. I nodded and let it go. “Expensive flying back and forth between London and LA though.”

“One of the reasons I’m broke. Fucking Molly. It was a big waste of money in the end.”

“And you headed back to London immediately after you searched my place because you thought I might come here, find you gone, and steal Wolhardt’s notes back?”

“Yes.”

“Well Nigel,” I said, standing. “It all adds up but not in a way that benefits you I’m afraid. I’m sorry about your troubles. Let me be clear about something. I’m no longer interested in you. Wolhardt’s real solution is well protected. You will not be able to steal it. So, my advice is give up on this and find another way to get out of debt. Leave burglary to the professionals. You’ll end up in jail if you keep this up. How would your aunt feel about that?”

I left him sitting there on his couch, a crumpled human. I felt bad. I had been there before, in his shoes, feeling how he felt, but I couldn’t do anything for him. I had a job to finish and I needed to turn my attention to Jutting. Time was running out. If I didn’t catch a break soon it would be all over.

****

Late that evening I was sitting up, unable to sleep. I had sent the photo of the van to Ashna and was waiting to hear back from her. I was waiting to hear back from Ortoli too. I didn’t know what my next step would be. I needed confirmation that it was Jutting’s people who had mugged Bathmore and I needed Ortoli’s help to put my plan into action. I was reading Cellini while the cat twitched in its sleep next to me on the couch. The book had begun to bore me. Cellini seemed to get into the same kinds of conflicts again and again, always because of his own stubbornness and ego. I was scanning quickly, flipping forward, when the word necromancy caught my attention and I read with renewed attention.

“It happened through a variety of singular accidents that I became intimate with a Sicilian priest, who was a man of very elevated genius and well instructed in both Latin and Greek letters. In the course of conversation one day we were led to talk about the art of necromancy; apropos of which I said: “Throughout my whole life I have had the most intense desire to see or learn something of this art.” Thereto the priest replied: “A stout soul and a steadfast must the man have who sets himself to such an enterprise.” I answered that of strength and steadfastness of soul I should have enough and to spare, provided I found the opportunity. Then the priest said: “If you have the heart to dare it, I will amply satisfy your curiosity.” Accordingly we agreed upon attempting the adventure.

The priest one evening made his preparations, and bade me find a comrade, or not more than two. I invited Vincenzio Romoli, a very dear friend of mine, and the priest took with him a native of Pistoja, who also cultivated the black art. We went together to the Coliseum; and there the priest, having arrayed himself in necromancer’s robes, began to describe circles on the earth with the finest ceremonies that can be imagined. I must say that he had made us bring precious perfumes and fire, and also drugs of fetid odour. When the preliminaries were completed, he made the entrance into the circle; and taking us by the hand, introduced us one by one inside it. Then he assigned our several functions; to the necromancer, his comrade, he gave the pentacle to hold; the other two of us had to look after the fire and the perfumes; and then he began his incantations. This lasted more than an hour and a half; when several legions appeared, and the Coliseum was all full of devils. I was occupied with the precious perfumes, and when the priest perceived in what numbers they were present, he turned to me and said: “Benvenuto, ask them something.” I called on them to reunite me with my Sicilian Angelica. That night we obtained no answer; but I enjoyed the greatest satisfaction of my curiosity in such matters. The necromancer said that we should have to go a second time, and that I should obtain the full accomplishment of my request; but he wished me to bring with me a little boy of pure virginity.”

I read on, captivated. Cellini related how he had chosen one of his young shop assistants and met the priest again. Once again he performed the ritual, summoning “the most dangerous of all the denizens of hell” and once again Cellini demanded to be reunited with Angelica. The demons assured him he would be with her within a month. The host of demons summoned by the necromancer was so great they all feared for their lives. Cellini’s description of the scene was chilling:

The sorcerer turned to me and said: “Hear you what they have replied; that in the space of one month you will be where she is?” Then once more he prayed me to stand firm by him, because the legions were a thousandfold more than he had summoned, and were the most dangerous of all the denizens of hell; and now that they had settled what I asked, it behooved us to be civil to them and dismiss them gently. On the other side, the boy, who was beneath the pentacle, shrieked out in terror that a million of the fiercest men were swarming round and threatening us. He said, moreover, that four huge giants had appeared, who were striving to force their way inside the circle.

The circle held and Cellini and his companions were able to stay inside “until the matinbells began to sound.” Safe at last “the necromancer put off his wizard’s robe, and packed up a great bundle of books which he had brought with him; then, all together, we issued with him from the circle, huddling as close as we could to one another.” Interestingly, later, as they made their way home, Cellini claimed the priest asked for his help “in consecrating a book, by means of which we should extract immeasurable wealth, since we could call up fiends to show us where treasures were.” I wasn’t sure exactly what this meant. Maybe the priest wanted Cellini to help him create a sort of magic book or grimoire with instructions for performing the ritual. The idea made me remember Dworkin and his raving about the dark saying. I shuddered involuntarily. The writing was very evocative even if it was the self-aggrandizing propaganda of a first rate solipsist.

I closed the eBook, put my phone aside, and sat thinking. Benderick had told me he didn’t believe the ‘dark saying’ supposedly woven into the variations could be an evil incantation. He had said the music spoke to him, uplifted him, giving him visions of something lofty and bright, not something dark and evil. Based on my experience of hearing the music, I had to agree with him. Reading Cellini’s account of summoning demons was intriguing though. I didn’t believe in the supernatural or demons or angels for that matter but I did believe people could have experiences that stretched them beyond rationality. Their own belief in those experiences mixed with a penchant for drama could be a force for swaying other people and gaining power over them, even down the centuries to a remote ancestor, locked in an asylum, conversing with an impressionable young music master dreaming of his own future glory.