The Doomsday Testament(74)

‘Let’s hope we have more luck than he did. Left or right?’

‘Left.’

‘Why?’

‘Because, if in doubt, I always go left.’

‘We’ll go right, then.’

He bit his tongue and followed her. As she walked, she left a single set of footprints in the dust of decades which had settled on the floor and that she now kicked up to sparkle like a million tiny fireflies in the torch beams. Above their heads a cable ran in shallow loops along the roof, linking a string of covered lights that vanished into the distance. Sarah strode on with the confidence of someone who belonged, though she carried her rucksack in front of her like a shield, but for Jamie the tunnel held an all-pervading atmosphere of doom. He tried to think of the Raphael, but all he imagined was a pair of vengeful eyes on his back. He had never felt more of an intruder. The air tasted foul and damp, like chewing mud, and he tried not to think about some kind of spore he’d read about that proliferated in ancient tombs and multiplied to fill the lungs like concrete. No, he didn’t want to think about that at all.

‘Look!’

Her torch had identified something glittering on the floor ahead. As they approached, Jamie could see it was window glass from the doors and windows of the wood-partitioned cubicles that now appeared on either side of the passageway. Sarah hesitated.

‘Shouldn’t we search them as we go?’

Jamie noticed a shape in the dust at his feet. He kicked it clean.

‘Probably not.’

Her face paled as she recognized the red skull and crossbones of a chemical warning sign.

‘But what about the painting?’

He studied the nearest cubicle, which contained a couple of cheap desks and rusting, open-mouthed metal filing cabinets. ‘These must have been laboratories or offices. If the Raphael is here it will be locked in a safe somewhere. That’s what we should look for.’

Now they walked with the constant crackle of broken glass beneath their feet.

‘Why would they go to so much trouble to cause this amount of damage?’ Sarah puzzled. ‘It must have taken a huge amount of effort.’

‘I don’t think they did. The spread is too even for these windows to have been smashed by individuals. The last time I saw something like this was in a documentary about the Troubles in Northern Ireland. You know about that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Someone had just set off a bomb in a shopping centre.’

For once she didn’t have anything to say.

They reached the end of the corridor. To the left a metal stairway led down to the next level, to the right was a compartment whose windows had miraculously survived whatever catastrophe had befallen the others. Halfway down the stairs Jamie stopped, not quite sure why, but suddenly drawn back to the intact office.

‘Sarah,’ he called.

She halted and glared back at him, keen to continue the search.

‘You said—’

‘I know, but I have a feeling.’

A minute later they stood in front of the last cubicle. A thick layer of dust coated the windows and made it impossible to see beyond their opaque stare. Jamie’s fingers twitched towards the door handle, but again some instinct drew him back. Why was this room still whole when all the others were not? A dark shadow of fear descended on him and he told himself it was only his imagination.

Sarah caught his mood. ‘You think it could be wired?’

‘I don’t know.’ He gently tapped the window. ‘This is some kind of toughened glass; that’s why the blast didn’t smash it like the rest. That makes this place special.’

He noticed that his knuckle had made a tiny circular peephole in the dust. He raised the torch and looked through it.

‘Oh, Christ almighty.’ He stepped sharply away from the window.

Sarah ran to his side. ‘What is it?’

He tried to speak, but no words would describe it. Instead, he took her hand and, slowly, almost reverentially, led her back to the window. He began in the middle of the small space he’d created and in circular sweeps cleared the dust from the glass. Not quite believing what they were seeing, they stared at the image before them. Jamie had never seen anything quite so beautiful and Sarah shared his wonder.

Slightly taller than it was wide, it hung in pride of place in the centre of the wall on the far side of the office behind a large desk. The face was almost feminine, but Jamie knew the subject was a young man, possibly even Raphael himself. He wore a soft cloth cap and white, loose-fitting shirt, and the dark eyes radiated intelligence from confident, aristocratic features. Beneath a thin coating of dust the minutely textured fur of his cape still retained a vibrancy that time had not diminished. Through the open window beyond the youth’s left shoulder was an Italian landscape. The arrangement was typical of the artist’s later portraits and Jamie knew that the scene in the window might have been painted three or even four different times before Raphael was satisfied. It was a masterpiece in the truest sense of the word.