“Virginia, I need a favour.” Webb ignored the wicked chuckle in his ear. “You told me there’s an original?”
“The original. Our Bodleian copy was a Late Renaissance transcription made in Amsterdam. Looking at myself in the mirror, I’d say I have a pretty good figure.”
“Where can I get my hands on it?”
“The manuscript, you mean? It’s somewhere in Italy. I can’t be sure. Vincenzo’s not one of your big names, Ollie, not like Galileo.”
“Please, Virginia!”
“Well now, I might be able to rustle up a contact for you. I think one of the Jesuit priests at Castelgandolfo could point the way. Shall I look into it?”
“Please. Send me as much information as you can about the historical background to Phaenomenis. I’m preparing a monograph on comets, and I thought I’d say something about the Renaissance theories. Maybe draw up a chapter outline while I’m at the Grand Canyon.”
Virginia’s contralto voice dripped with unconcealed envy. “Some people have all the sodding luck. Can you access a terminal?”
Noordhof was tensed up again.
“Yes, I’m due to drop in on a colleague at the University of Arizona.”
“In that case I’ll scan things in and type something up, and put it on anonymous ftp. You should be able to access it through my home page within a couple of hours. But it’ll cost you.”
“Name your price.”
“A weekend in Paris?”
“Agreed.”
“A naughty one?”
Noordhof’s eyeballs were rolling.
“Virginia, I’m forever grateful. Byee.”
Elated, the astronomer turned to Noordhof. “Mark, I must get to Rome right away. I want to get my hands on a four-hundred-year-old manuscript.”
Noordhof was about to reply but the glass door banged open and there was the sound of running footsteps along the corridor. Judy entered the room panting, flushed and shaking. “Come quickly.”
The men left Kowalski and Sacheverell asleep and followed her at a fast trot to the cable car shed. She pointed upwards. A wisp of cloud was swirling around Eagle Peak; but then it cleared, and they could just discern a man dangling from the cable car, his arms at full stretch, legs waving.
Webb sprinted back to the observatory building and reappeared with a coastguard telescope and a tripod. They quickly set it up. In the eyepiece, Webb traced the cable up to the summit. The top platform almost filled the field of view. The car had stopped about twenty feet down from it. There was a clear three thousand feet of air between the man and the ground below. “It’s André. The door’s open and he’s hanging on to the edge of the floor. By the tips of his fingers, I think.”
“How the bloody hell?” Shafer asked.
Judy’s fists were at her mouth, clenched in fright. “How long has he been like that?”
Noordhof ran into the cable car winch house. Judy and Shafer followed him in, staring up through the big plate glass window. Webb stayed at the eyepiece. Noordhof moved over to the panel. It was on a gunmetal grey desk, with a large On — Off switch and a lever marked Up and Down.
“What are you doing, Mark?” Webb called in.
“I’m sliding the car up. He can’t hang on like that for more than a few minutes.”
“You’ll knock him off. He’ll hit the concrete platform.”
“It’s up or down. And his grip won’t last the trip down.”
Shafer was holding his head in his hands, looking up. “How long has he been hanging like that?”
“Try it slow,” Webb shouted in to the winch house.
Noordhof pulled the big switch to On. The motor whined and gears clashed. He turned the lever slowly from neutral towards its Up position. In the eyepiece of the telescope, Webb saw the little car jerk alarmingly, and Leclerc’s feet wave frantically in space. It edged up towards the platform. The Frenchman’s body drew alongside a concrete wall; it seemed to be scraping his back.
“Slow!” Webb shouted in. Then “Stop! He’s not going to make it. It’s the Eskimo suit. There isn’t the space. If we try to drag him through he’ll lose his grip.”
Noordhof sprinted out and put his eye to the telescope. Leclerc’s head seemed almost to be jammed in the space between platform and car. His arms were stretched full length above him, as if he was grasping for something almost out of reach. He was about one unattainable metre from safety.
The soldier ran back into the building, and reversed the direction of the lever. Webb saw the Frenchman drifting clear of the narrow gap, and then he was into open space. “He’s clear!” Noordhof put the lever to its maximum. The engine whine rose in pitch and the steel cable vibrated tautly, winding swiftly on to the big drum. They ran out and watched the little car sink towards them.
Leclerc was hanging motionless, his legs no longer waving. He was now well out from the cliff. Webb thought he was looking down. For the first few hundred feet the descent of the car seemed to be agonizingly slow; as it approached the halfway mark it seemed to be descending marginally faster, and although Webb knew that to be an illusion of perspective, he began to think that Leclerc might make it. But two thirds of the way down, at about a thousand feet above ground, the Frenchman lost his grip.
Judy screamed. Webb shouted No! Leclerc hurtled down with terrifying acceleration, arms and legs waving helplessly in the air. He hit a projection of the cliff a few hundred feet up and as many feet away from the horrified group. The muffled “Thud!” came above the whine from the winch house, and a shower of little stones and earth followed the body which bounced high before disappearing into the treetops.
Judy ran back to the main building without a word. Noordhof, Shafer and Webb ran through the trees. They found Leclerc without difficulty, a path of broken branches marking his flight path. Noordhof and Shafer paled, and Webb turned away. He found a quiet corner. His body tried to vomit but his stomach was empty.
Noordhof took off his blue anorak and covered the Frenchman’s head with it, stepping to avoid the dark red snow near the corpse. They searched around for heavy stones to secure the anorak in position.
Judy had coffee on the boil when they returned. Her eyes were red. Noordhof disappeared momentarily and returned with a half bottle of cognac which he emptied into the coffee percolator before Judy poured. Webb crossed to the kitchen sink and splashed icy water over his face, drying off with a dish towel. He felt reasonably calm inwardly and was surprised to find that he could not lift his mug without spilling the coffee. After the third attempt he left it on the table.
Shafer drank down half his coffee in one draught. “Okay Mark, talk about it. How could that possibly have happened? And what was he doing up top, anyway? He’s not an observer.”
Noordhof said, “This is how I see it. He goes up top for whatever reason, maybe just for the view. He pulls the lever but trips up when he gets to the car. End of our rocket man.”
“Truly an accident?” Judy asked in a shaky voice.
Noordhof shrugged. “What else?”
Murder, Webb thought to himself.
Judy’s hands were trembling and her eyes were tearful. So, maybe she was a good actress. He glanced at Noordhof. If he was an actor he was underplaying his hand: the soldier was cool and self-controlled. Webb was startled to find Willy Shafer looking at him closely, as if the Nobel man was reading his mind. Or maybe he’s wondering about me, Webb surmised.
Shafer said, “This is a police matter.”
“Sure.” There was a long silence.