The Alchemist’s Secret

Chapter Four

The private jet carried him over the Irish Sea and southwards towards the Sussex coast. It touched down at an airfield, where they were met by a sleek black Bentley Arnage limousine. Ben was ushered into the back of the car by the same anonymous men in grey suits who’d collected him from his home that afternoon and sat with him on the plane, grim-faced and taciturn. The two men climbed into a black Jaguar Sovereign that sat on the tarmac with its engine purring, waiting for the Bentley to move off.

Settling into the plush cream leather interior of the Bentley, Ben ignored the on-board cocktail cabinet, took out his battered steel hip-flask and swallowed down a mouthful of whisky. As he slipped the flask back in his pocket, he noticed that the eyes of the uniformed driver had been watching him in the mirror.

They drove for about forty minutes. The Jaguar followed all the way. Ben watched the road-signs and took note of the route, orientating himself. After a few miles of dual carriageway the Bentley headed cross-country, speeding at a smooth whisper through empty country roads. A village flashed past. Eventually the car turned off a quiet country lane and drew up at an archway in a high stone wall. The Jag pulled up behind. Automatic gates, black and gilt, swung open to let the cars through. The Bentley rolled down a winding private road, past a terrace of estate cottages. Ben turned to watch as some fine-looking horses galloped by in a white-fenced paddock. When he looked back at the rear window, the Jaguar had vanished.

The road continued, with neat formal gardens on either side. Down an alley of stately cypress trees the house appeared before them, a Georgian mansion fronted by a sweep of stone steps and classical columns.

Ben wondered what his prospective client did for a living. The house looked as though it must be worth at least seven or eight million. This would probably turn out to be another K&R job, as was the case with the vast majority of his wealthier clients. Kidnap and ransom had become one of the world’s fastest expanding businesses these days. In some countries, the K&R industry had even overtaken heroin.

The Bentley passed a large ornamental fountain and drew up at the foot of the steps. Ben didn’t wait for the driver to open the door for him. A man came down the steps to greet him. ‘I’m Alexander Villiers, Mr. Fairfax’s PA. We spoke on the phone.’

Ben only nodded, and studied Villiers. He looked to be in his mid-forties or thereabouts. His hair was slick and greying at the temples. He was wearing a crisp navy blazer and a tie with what looked like a college or public school emblem.

‘So glad you came,’ Villiers said. ‘Mr. Fairfax is waiting for you upstairs.’

Ben was led through a large marble-floored entrance hall that was wide enough to accommodate a medium-sized aircraft, and up a wide curving staircase to a wood-panelled corridor lined with paintings and glass display cabinets. Villiers guided him wordlessly down the long corridor and stopped at a doorway. He knocked, and a resonant voice inside called ‘Come in’.

Villiers showed Ben into a study. Sunlight streamed brightly in through a leaded bow window that was flanked by heavy velvet drapes. The smell of leather and furniture polish hung in the air.

The man sitting at the broad desk stood up as Ben entered the study. He was tall and slender in a dark suit, a mane of white hair swept back from his high forehead. Ben put his age at around seventy-five, though he looked fit and upright.

‘Mr. Hope, sir,’ said Villiers, and departed, closing the heavy doors behind him. The tall man approached Ben from behind the desk, extending his hand. His grey eyes were quick and penetrating. ‘Mr. Hope, I am Sebastian Fairfax,’ he said warmly. ‘Thank you so much for having agreed to come all this way, and at such short notice.’

They shook hands. ‘Please, take a seat,’ said Fairfax. ‘May I offer you a drink?’ He approached a cabinet to his left, and took up a cut-crystal decanter. Ben reached into his jacket pocket and brought out his old flask, unscrewing the top. ‘I see you’ve brought your own,’ said Fairfax. ‘A resourceful man.’

Ben drank, aware that Fairfax was watching him keenly. He knew what the old man was thinking. ‘It doesn’t affect my work,’ he said, screwing the top back on.

‘I’m sure,’ said Fairfax. He sat down behind the desk. ‘Now, shall we get straight to business?’

‘That would be fine.’

Fairfax leaned back in his chair, pursing his lips. ‘You’re a man who finds people.’

‘I try,’ Ben replied.

Fairfax pursed his lips and continued. ‘I have someone I want you to find. It’s an assignment for a specialist. Your background is highly impressive.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’m looking for a man by the name of Fulcanelli. It’s an extremely important matter and I need a professional of your talents to locate him.’

‘Fulcanelli. Does he have a first name?’ Ben asked.

‘Fulcanelli is a pseudonym. Nobody knows his true identity.’

‘That’s a help. So I take it that this man isn’t an especially close friend of yours, a missing family member or anything like that?’ Ben smiled coldly. ‘My clients normally know the people they want me to find.’

‘That’s correct, he isn’t.’

‘So, what’s the connection? What do you want him for? Has he stolen something from you? That’s a matter for the police, not me.’

‘No, nothing like that,’ said Fairfax with a dismissive gesture. ‘I have no ill will towards Fulcanelli. On the contrary, he means a great deal to me.’

‘OK. Can you tell me when this person was last seen, and where?’

‘Fulcanelli was last sighted in Paris, as far as I’ve been able to trace,’ Fairfax said. ‘As to when he was last seen…’ He paused. ‘It was some time ago.’

‘That always makes things harder. What are we talking about, more than, say, two years?’

‘A little longer than that.’

‘Five? Ten?’

‘Mr. Hope, the last known sighting of Fulcanelli was in 1926.’

Ben stared at him. He did a quick calculation. ‘That was more than eighty years ago. Are we talking about some child abduction case?’

‘He wasn’t an infant,’ stated Fairfax with a calm smile. ‘Fulcanelli was a man of some eighty years at the time of his sudden disappearance.’

Ben narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this some kind of joke? I’ve come a long way, and frankly-‘

‘I assure you I’m perfectly serious,’ replied Fairfax. ‘I’m not a humorous man. I repeat, I would like you to find Fulcanelli for me.’

‘I look for people who are living,’ Ben said. ‘I’m not interested in searching for departed spirits. If you want that, you need to call the parapsychology institute and they could send one of their ghostbusters out to you.’

Fairfax smiled. ‘I appreciate your scepticism. However, there is reason to believe that Fulcanelli is alive. But perhaps we need to narrow the focus here. My main interest isn’t so much the man himself, but certain knowledge of which he is, or was, in possession. Information of a crucially important nature, which I and my agents have so far failed to locate.’

‘Information of what sort?’ Ben asked.

‘The information is contained within a document, a precious manuscript to be precise. I want you to locate and bring me back the Fulcanelli manuscript.’

Ben pursed his lips. ‘Has there been some misunderstanding here? Your man Villiers told me this was a matter of life and death.’

‘It is,’ Fairfax replied.

‘I don’t follow you. What information are we talking about?’

Fairfax smiled sadly. ‘I’ll explain. Mr. Hope, I have a granddaughter. Her name is Ruth.’

Ben hoped his reaction to the name didn’t show.

‘Ruth is nine years old, Mr. Hope,’ Fairfax continued, ‘and I fear she will never see her tenth birthday. She suffers from a rare type of cancer. Her mother, my daughter, despairs of her recovery. So do the top private medical experts, who, despite all the funds I have at my disposal, have been unable to reverse the course of this terrible illness.’ Fairfax reached out a slender hand. On his desk facing him was a photograph in a gold frame. He turned it around to show Ben. The photograph showed a little blonde girl, all smiles and happiness, sitting astride a pony.

‘Needless to say,’ Fairfax went on, ‘this picture was taken some time ago, before the disease was detected. She doesn’t look like that any more. They’ve sent her home to die.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Ben said. ‘But I don’t understand what this has to do with–’

‘With the Fulcanelli manuscript? It has everything to do with it. I believe that the Fulcanelli manuscript holds vital information, ancient knowledge that could save the life of my beloved Ruth. Could bring her back to us and restore her to what she was in that picture.’

‘Ancient knowledge? What kind of ancient knowledge?’

Fairfax gave a grim smile. ‘Mr. Hope, Fulcanelli was–and still is, as I believe–an alchemist.’

There was a heavy silence. Fairfax studied Ben’s face intently.

Ben looked down at his hands for a few moments. He sighed. ‘What are you saying, that this manuscript will show you how to make some kind of…some kind of life-saving potion?’

‘An alchemical elixir,’ Fairfax said. ‘Fulcanelli knew its secret.’

‘Look, Mr. Fairfax. I understand how painful your situation is,’ Ben said, measuring his words. ‘I can sympathize with you. It’s easy to want to believe that some secret remedy could work miracles. But a man of your intellect…don’t you think perhaps you’re deluding yourself? I mean, alchemy?. Wouldn’t it be better to look for more expert medical advice? Perhaps some new form of treatment, some modern technology…’

Fairfax shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, everything that can be done, according to modern science, has been done. I’ve looked at every possibility. Believe me, I’ve researched this subject in extreme depth and am not taking the matter lightly…there is more in the book of science than present-day experts would have us believe.’ He paused. ‘Mr. Hope, I’m a proud man. I have been extraordinarily successful in my life and I wield a very considerable amount of influence. Yet you see me here as a sad old grandfather. I would get down on my knees to beg you to help me–to help Ruth–if I thought that could persuade you. You may think my quest is a folly, but for the love of God and the sake of that dear sweet child, won’t you indulge an old man and accept my offer? What have you got to lose? We’re the ones who stand to lose a great deal, if our Ruth doesn’t survive.’

Ben hesitated.

‘I know you have no family or children of your own, Mr. Hope,’ Fairfax went on. ‘Perhaps only a father, or a grandfather, can really understand what it means to see one’s dear offspring suffer or die. No parent should have to endure that torture.’ He looked Ben in the eye with an unwavering gaze. ‘Find the Fulcanelli manuscript, Mr. Hope. I believe you can. I’ll pay you a fee of one million pounds sterling, one quarter of that sum in advance, and the balance on safe delivery of the manuscript.’ He opened a drawer of the desk, took out a slip of paper and slid it across the polished wood surface. Ben picked it up. The cheque was for £250,000 and made out in his name.

‘It only requires my signature,’ Fairfax said quietly. ‘And the money’s yours.’

Ben stood up, still holding the cheque. Fairfax watched him intently as he walked to the window and looked out across the sweeping estate at the gently swaying trees. He was quiet for a minute, and then he breathed out audibly through his nose and turned slowly to Fairfax. ‘This isn’t what I do. I locate missing people.’

‘I’m asking you to save the life of a child. Does it matter how that’s accomplished?’

‘You’re asking me to go on a wild goose chase that you believe can save her.’ He tossed the cheque back across Fairfax’s desk. ‘But I don’t see how it can. I’m sorry, Mr. Fairfax. Thanks for your offer, but I’m not interested. Now, I’d like your driver to take me back to the airfield.’

Chapter Five

In a large open field full of wild flowers and gently swaying lush grass, a teenage boy and a little girl were running, laughing, hand in hand. Their blond hair was golden in the sunshine. The boy let go of the little girl’s hand and dropped to his knees to pick a flower. Giggling, she ran on ahead, looking back at him with her nose crinkled in mischief and freckled cheeks rosy. The boy held out the flower to her, and suddenly she was standing far away. Beside her was a gateway, leading to a high-walled maze.

‘Ruth!’ he called to her. ‘Come back!’ The little girl cupped her hands around her mouth, shouted ‘Come and find me!’ and disappeared, grinning, through the gate.

The boy ran after her, but something was wrong. The distance between him and the maze kept stretching further and further. He shouted ‘Don’t go, Ruth, don’t leave me behind!’ He ran and ran, but now the ground under his feet wasn’t grass any more but sand, deep soft sand into which he sank and stumbled.

Then a tall man in flowing white robes was blocking his way. The boy’s head only reached as high as the man’s waist, and he felt small and powerless. He got around the man and made it to the entrance of the maze just in time to see Ruth flitting away into the distance. She wasn’t laughing any more, but crying out in fear as she vanished around a corner. Their eyes met a last time. Then she was gone.

Now there were other tall men in white robes, with black beards. They crowded round him and towered over him, blocking his way and his sight, jabbering at him in a language he couldn’t understand, eyes round and white in mahogany faces that loomed close up to him, grinning with gaps in their teeth. And then they grabbed hold of his arms and shoulders with powerful hands and held him back and he was shouting and yelling and struggling but there were more and more of them and he was pinned and couldn’t move…

He gripped the glass tightly in his hand and felt the burn of the whisky against his tongue. In the distance, beyond the heaving dark grey waves that crashed against the rocks of the bay, the arc of the horizon was slowly lightening to red with the dawn.

He turned away from the window as he heard the door open behind him. ‘Morning, Win,’ he said, managing a smile. ‘What are you doing up so early?’

She looked at him with concern, her eye flickering to the glass in his hand and the empty bottle on the table behind him. ‘Thought I heard voices. Everything all right, Ben?’

‘I couldn’t get back to sleep.’

‘Bad dreams again?’ she asked knowingly.

He nodded. Winnie sighed. Picked up the worn old photograph that he’d been looking at earlier and had left lying on the table next to the whisky bottle. ‘Wasn’t she beautiful?’ the old lady whispered, shaking her head and biting her lip.

‘I miss her so badly, Winnie. After all these years.’

‘You think I don’t know that?’ she replied, looking up at him. ‘I miss them all.’ She laid the picture down carefully on the table.

He raised the glass again, and drained it quickly.

Winnie frowned. ‘Ben, this drinking–’

‘Don’t lecture me, Win.’

‘I’ve never said a word to you before,’ she replied firmly. ‘But you’re just getting worse. What’s wrong, Ben? Since you came back from seeing that man you’ve been acting restless, not eating. You’ve hardly slept the last three nights. I’m worried about you. Look at you–you’re pale. And I know you only opened that bottle last night.’

He smiled a little, leaned across and kissed her forehead. ‘I’m sorry if I snapped. I don’t mean to worry you, Win. I know I’m hard to live with.’

‘What did he want from you, anyway?’

‘Fairfax?’ Ben turned towards the window and looked back out to sea, watching as the rising sun touched the undersides of the clouds with gold. ‘He wanted me…he wanted me to save Ruth,’ he said, and wished that his glass weren’t empty.

He waited until just before nine, then he picked up the phone.

‘You’re reconsidering my offer?’ Fairfax said.

‘You haven’t found anyone else?’

‘No.’

‘In that case, I’ll take the job.’

Chapter Six

Oxford

Ben arrived early for his rendezvous at the Oxford Union Society. Like many old students of the university he was a life member of the venerable institution that nestles off the Cornmarket and has served for centuries as a meeting-place, debating hall and members-only club. As he’d done in his student days, he avoided the grand entrance and went in the back way, down a narrow alley next to Cornmarket’s McDonald’s restaurant. He flashed his tatty old membership card at the desk and walked through the hallowed corridors for the first time in nearly twenty years.

It seemed strange to be back here. He’d never thought he would set foot in this place again, or even in this city again, with all the dark memories it held for him–memories of a life once planned, and of the life that fortune had made for him instead.

Professor Rose hadn’t yet arrived as Ben entered the Union’s old library. Nothing had changed. He gazed around him at the dark wood panelling, reading tables and high galleries of leather-bound books. Up above, the frescoed ceiling with its small rose windows and priceless Arthurian legend murals dominated the magnificent room.

‘Benedict!’ called a voice from behind him. He turned to see Jonathan Rose, stouter, greyer and balder but instantly recognizable as the history don he’d known so long ago, striding happily across the burnished floorboards to shake his hand. ‘How are you, Professor? It’s been a long time.’

They settled in a pair of the library’s worn leather armchairs, and exchanged small-talk for a few minutes. Little had changed for the professor–Oxford academic life went on much as it had always done. ‘I was a little surprised to hear from you after all these years, Benedict. To what do I owe this pleasure?’

Ben explained his purpose in asking to meet him. ‘And then I remembered that I knew one of the country’s top ancient history scholars.’

‘Just don’t call me an ancient historian, as most of my students do.’ Rose smiled. ‘So, you’re interested in alchemy, are you?’ He raised his eyebrows and peered at Ben over his glasses. ‘Didn’t think that sort of stuff was your cup of tea. You haven’t become one of those New Age types, I hope?’

Ben laughed. ‘I’m a writer these days. I’m just doing some research.’

‘Writer? Good, good. What did you say this fellow’s name was–Fracasini?’

‘Fulcanelli.’

Rose shook his head. ‘Can’t say I’ve ever heard of him. I’m not really the man to help you there. Bit of a far out subject for most of us fuddy-duddy academics–even in this post-Harry Potter age.’

Ben felt a pang of disappointment. He hadn’t entertained high hopes that Jon Rose would have much to offer him on Fulcanelli, let alone on a Fulcanelli manuscript, but with so little to go on it was a shame to lose any potential source of dependable information. ‘Is there anything you can tell me generally about alchemy?’ he asked.

‘As I say, it’s not my field,’ Rose replied. ‘Like most people, I’d be inclined to dismiss it all as complete hocus pocus.’ He smiled. ‘Though it has to be said that few esoteric cults have endured so well over the centuries. All the way from ancient Egypt and China, right through the Dark Ages and medieval times and onwards into the Renaissance–it’s a sub-current that keeps resurfacing all throughout history.’ The professor stretched back in the worn leather chair as he spoke, adopting the tutor pose that was second nature to him. ‘Though heaven knows what they were up to, or thought they were up to–turning lead into gold, creating magical potions, elixirs of life, and all the rest of it.’

‘I take it you don’t believe in the possibility of an alchemical elixir that could cure the sick?’

Rose frowned, noticing Ben’s deadpan expression and wondering where he was going with this. ‘I think that if they’d developed a magic remedy for plague, pox, cholera, typhus, and all the other diseases that have ravaged us through history, we’d have known about it.’ He shrugged. ‘The problem is it’s all so speculative. Nobody really knows what the alchemists might have discovered. Alchemy’s famous for its inscrutability–all that cloak-and-dagger stuff, secret brotherhoods, riddles and codes and supposed hidden knowledge. Personally I don’t think there was much substance to any of it.’

‘Why all the obscurity?’ Ben asked, thinking of the reading he’d been doing over the last couple of days, running Internet searches on terms like ‘ancient knowledge’ and ‘secrets of alchemy’ and wading through one esoteric website after another. He’d turned up a wide variety of alchemical writings, ranging from the present day back to the fourteenth century. They all shared the same baffling and grandiose language, the same dark air of secrecy. He hadn’t been able to decide how much of it was genuine and how much was just esoteric posturing for the benefit of the credulous devotees they’d been attracting over the centuries.

‘If I wanted to be cynical I’d say it was because they didn’t actually have anything worth revealing,’ Rose grinned. ‘But you’ve also got to remember that alchemists had powerful enemies, and perhaps some of their obsession with secrecy was a way of protecting themselves.’

‘Against what?’

‘Well, at one end of the scale there were the sharks and speculators who preyed on them,’ Rose said. ‘Once in a while some hapless alchemist who’d bragged too loudly about gold-making would be kidnapped and made to tell how it was done. When they failed to come up with the goods, which of course they probably always did, they’d end up hanging from a tree.’ The professor paused. ‘But their real enemy was the Church, especially in Europe, where they were forever burning them as heretics and witches. Look what the Catholic Inquisition did to the Cathars in medieval France, on the direct orders of Pope Innocent III. They called the liquidation of an entire people God’s work. Nowadays we call it genocide.’

‘I’ve heard of the Cathars,’ Ben said. ‘Can you tell me more?’

Rose took off his glasses and polished them with the end of his tie. ‘It’s a terrible story,’ he said. ‘They were a fairly widespread medieval religious movement that mainly occupied the part of southern France now known as the Languedoc. They took their name from the Greek word Catharos, meaning “pure”. Their religious beliefs were a little radical in that they regarded God as a kind of cosmic principle of love. They didn’t attribute much importance to Christ, and may not even have believed he existed. Their idea was that, even if he had existed, he certainly couldn’t have been the son of God. They believed that all matter was fundamentally crude and corrupt, including human beings. For them, religious worship was all about spiritualizing, perfecting and transforming that base matter to attain union with the Divine.’