“The stroke of midnight,” said Gammon. “On the last night of the year.”

“The last night of this year,” said Will. “This year 1899. It’s what we might call a Millennium Bug.”

38

“Surely, sir,” said Gammon. “It would be a Centennial Bug, not a Millennium Bug. The Millennium is not due for another hundred years.”

“Millennium Bug sounds much more dramatic,” said Will.

“Yes, sir, but it is technically incorrect.”

“Just leave it,” said Will.

“As you wish, sir. And so, can Mr Tim disable this Millennium Bug?”

“Of course.” Tim plucked at his beard. “Given time, but I doubt very much whether it’s even programmed into their system yet. If it were me, I’d leave it until the very last minute before programming it in, in case there was someone like me thinking to sabotage it.”

“Surely you’d want to test it,” said Will. “To make sure that it worked.”

Tim shook his head. “This is a bit different from your everyday computer virus,” he said. “If it involves magic, and this is Big Magic, then I’ll bet it involves all manner of big things; alignments of the planets, a series of rituals, probably even a human sacrifice.”

“You are joking, surely.”

“Mr Tim is not joking,” said Gammon. “And there have already been five such sacrifices.”

“What?” went Will.

“The Ripper murders, sir. Surely you are aware of them.”

Will made a thoughtful face.

“Why are you scowling?” Tim asked.

“I wasn’t scowling, I was making a thoughtful face.”

“That’s not how you do it,” said Tim. “You do it like this.”

“Very good, sir,” said Gammon.

“Thank you, Gammon,” said Tim.

“Stop this,” said Will. “It’s not funny and it’s not clever. You think that the Ripper murders were definitely human sacrifices?”

“No doubt of it, sir. If you join up the sites of the murders on a map you will see that an inverted pentagram is formed.”

“Yes,” said Will. “I know.”

“But of course you would, sir. The Master informed me that you had agreed to take on the case. Any suspects?”

Will sighed.

“Quite so, sir,” said Gammon.

“Tell you what,” said Tim. “I’ll crack on here, see what I can come up with. Why don’t you carry on with Gammon’s website? I’m looking forward to reading the answer to question six, ‘What is Gammon’s favourite proprietary brand of pork scratchings?’”

“Good idea, sir,” said Gammon.

“Not so good idea,” said Will.

“I could get supper on,” said Gammon.

“Good idea,” said Will. “I’ll help you.”

“I’d rather that you didn’t, sir. I can manage quite well on my own. I’ve been years getting that kitchen exactly the way I want it.”

“I’ll help you then, Tim.”

“I can manage.” Tim rattled away at the keyboard. “Go and play in Rune’s study, or something.”

“Oh all right. Lead the way to the lift, please, Gammon.”

Gammon led the way.

And while Tim busied himself at the keyboard and Gammon busied himself in the kitchen, Will, without anything in particular to busy himself with, loafed about in Rune’s study.

He ran a finger, beringed with a circlet of varnished gristle (which a talisman salesman in Cairo had assured him was nothing less than the Holy foreskin of St Thomas, the very sight of which would strike fear into the most fearsome of witches), along the leathern spines of a row of antique tomes and plucked one out at random: The Autobiography of Casanova.

Will sat himself down next to the fire and idly leafed through it. The book, a first edition, was actually autographed. Will whistled. This book alone would be worth a fortune in the twenty-third century. Rune had amassed a most remarkable collection.

Will gazed at Casanova’s signature, a flamboyant piece of calligraphy, and at the date 1792. Will read the dedication above the signature.

To Hugo Rune, who introduced me

to the pleasures of the flesh.

From your disciple,

Giovanni Jacopo Casanova

“What?” went Will. And he looked once more at the date. That couldn’t be true, could it? The inscription had to be a forgery. Will put the book aside, rose from his seat and selected another at random.

I’m the Pope and You’re not! The life and merry times of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander the Sixth. 1492.

Will read what was written on the flyleaf.

For Hugo, who—

“No!” went Will. And he struggled to pull an enormous tome from the bottom shelf. He laid it out upon the floor and opened it. The Domesday Book, signed in the hand of King William himself.

To my dear friend Hugo,

for all his help in putting this together.

“No!” and Will pulled another one and then another.

It couldn’t be true.

It just couldn’t.

Rune had to have forged these signatures.

A bound manuscript of Shakespeare’s The Tempest bore the inscription: Thanks for the inspiration, Hugo.

Will slammed it shut.

“Ah,” said Gammon entering the study with a tray. “I see you are admiring the Master’s library sir. Five thousand volumes, and each with a personal dedication to the Master.”

“It can’t be true,” Will shook his head and replaced The Tempest onto its shelf. “He couldn’t really have lived for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

“And why would that be, then, sir?” Gammon placed the tray upon a padouk wood and ivory-mounted chess table, that had been a gift to Hugo Rune from Genghis Khan. “Muffins?” he asked.

“Impossible,” said Will.

“You haven’t tasted them yet, sir.”

“Not the muffins. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Sir,” said Gammon, “you stand before one of the most valuable book collections in the world. I believe that you must be aware that the Master was, how shall I put this, careful with money. Do you really believe that he would have amassed such a collection of priceless tomes and then defaced and devalued them by forging signatures and dedications into them?”

Will made a very thoughtful face.

“Good face, sir,” said Gammon. “And, as our American cousins might say, right back at ya!”

“But I just can’t believe it.”

“Sir.” Gammon buttered muffins. “I informed you and Mr Tim that I had been in the Master’s employ for nearly two hundred years. During this time I have kept diaries. Daily diaries. They are all in my room. Perhaps you might care to examine them. They might blunt the edge of your scepticism.”

Will shook his head. And he sniffed the muffins, took one up and munched upon it. “How old was he?” Will asked between munchings.

“I really couldn’t say, sir. He once informed me that he was Christ’s thirteenth disciple – his spiritual adviser, in fact – but that he’d asked for his name to be left out of the New Testament for personal reasons.”

“That’s rather unlikely, isn’t it?” Will finished his muffin and licked at his fingers.

“How so, sir? His name does not appear in the New Testament, which rather proves the truth of his statement, I would have thought.”

Will shook his head. “No,” he said.

“Although,” Gammon glanced about the library shelves, “I’m sure there’s a first draft of the New Testament somewhere here. Written in Christ’s own hand and dedicated to—”

“Stop it,” said Will. “I fear that my brain is about to explode.”

“Above the fireplace there,” said Gammon, “hangs the very sword that cleaved the head from John the Baptist. The Master was not present on the night of that tragedy, or he would no doubt have prevented it. He did however later have, I believe it is called, a fling with Salome. She gave him the sword as a souvenir.”