“Will e-mailed some notes about it among the other ideas from Rome.” Simon sat down on the floor, drew his knees up, and rested his chin on his arms. “I’ve started going through them, since we got into his iBook a couple of weeks ago. Most of it is a dyslexic tangle—that convoluted stuff about alchemists and light we read, which I printed off here. But he did seem to be focused on the Inquisition—mainly because of the carbon dating, and these first words here, about the Field of Flowers, and the flames. He’d worked out that the Campo de’ Fiori was the site of religious burnings during the relevant period, apparently. He’d made a list of names, and some facts about them. A man called Bruno seems to have been their most colorful victim—perhaps he chattered with angels too, so to speak.” Simon looked at each of them, and added: “And if this Dr. Dee was talking to angels, the Inquisition would have been interested in knowing the details of that as well.”

“Just like Calvin.” Alex laughed, without much humor. “Perhaps he’s the modern Inquisition.”

His pager went off, and he walked to the phone in the kitchen, but Simon’s words followed him.

“That’s not funny. Could Calvin have had any interest in hacking Will’s computer?”

Simon looked at them both, realizing they were all aware of a tacit sense of unease about him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that perhaps; but that Sator Arepo stuff is just the kind of thing he’d be into.”

Here Lucy interrupted. “Sator stuff? Simon, do you mean the word square?” She was still playing with the words in her mind, from two evenings before.

“‘The Lord holds the whole Creation in his hands.’ There are other suggestions as to how to translate it exactly, but yes. It’s either a magic eye that wards off evil, or some kind of private handshake between early Christians. Will knew it was probably paranoia, but he texted me that he thought he was being watched while he was abroad; and we found the so-called Sator Square on his computer, presumably put there to stop anyone reading his mail. I’ve found in his notes that he was becoming quite frantic about this. But what’s worrying me is, did Siân talk a little too much to her new man about her old one?”