Newton’s Fire Read Free Page B

better to photograph it. ‘Though they did spend a week together in London one time, when no one else even knew that Fatio was in the country.’ He checked the image in his digital display, turned the page over to photograph its reverse. ‘And Newton later implored him to live with him in Cambridge.’
    ‘My word.’ She let out a bark of a laugh. ‘Maybe
that’s
why Uncle Bernie wanted these papers.’
    Luke set the second page in place. ‘How do you mean?’
    A little colour pinked her cheeks. ‘They called them “confirmed bachelors” in my day,’ she said, with just a hint of a smile, as though unaccustomed to revealing family skeletons, yet rather enjoying it. ‘“Not the marrying kind”. I had no idea what that actually meant. I simply assumed Uncle Bernie hadn’t yet met the right woman. I even hoped I’d be able to help find her for him myself. He was so
nice
to me. The only Martyn who
truly
welcomed me into the family. But then I called on him without warning one afternoon.’ She gave another of her barking laughs and blushed even deeper. ‘Well, I’m sure you can imagine.’
    ‘Must have been a shock,’ said Luke, photographing the third paper.
    ‘For both of us,’ she admitted. ‘All three of us, I should say. We girls were so naïve back then. You wouldn’t believe.’
    He photographed the back of the last page, held up his camera. ‘May I email these of f ? The sooner my client gets them, the sooner he’ll make an offer. If he wants them, that is.’
    ‘And I’m not obliged to accept, you said?’
    ‘Of course not. All he asks is the opportunity to make the first bid.’ His client’s lawyer had been absurdly emphatic about that, repeating it at every opportunity. ‘You’ll be perfectly free to accept it, reject it or negotiate something better.’ The house was too remote for his own WiFi service, but Penelope had assured him earlier that he’d be welcome to use the wired broadband she’d had put in to tempt her grandkids to come and visit. He plugged his laptop into her router, transferred the photographs, attached them to an email and sent them on their way. The high resolution files were big, however, and her connection was slow. ‘This could take a while,’ he said.
    ‘We’ll have a nice cup of tea,’ said Penelope.
    He toured the walls as her old kettle struggled to the boil, looking at family photographs. A surly lot, for the most part, with long noses and sour upper lips, posing grudgingly for the camera. But then he reached a picture of a young woman with short brown hair and an enchanting smile leaning against the driver door of an old grey-blue Rover.
    ‘My great-niece Rachel,’ Penelope said, appearing at his side with a plate of shortbread biscuits. ‘She’s one of your lot.’
    ‘My lot?’
    ‘An academic. She’s doing her doctorate at Caius College, Cambridge. She wants to be a lecturer like you.’
    ‘Ah,’ said Luke, a touch guiltily. He’d used old university letterheaded paper for his correspondence with Penelope; and somehow he’d neglected to let her know about their parting of the ways following his convictions for assault and offences against the Terrorism Act. ‘What’s her field?’ he asked.
    ‘The archaeology and history of the ancient Near East, I think. Something like that, anyway. Between you and me, I find it terribly hard to follow.’
    ‘She looks nice.’
    ‘As opposed to my own brood, you mean?’
    ‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ protested Luke, a little too hotly. ‘I just meant that she looks nice.’ His laptop beeped, sparing his further blushes. He went to check it. The battery was running low. ‘Mind if I recharge?’ he asked.
    ‘Be my guest.’ She pointed him to a spare socket, cleared her throat, now suffering from awkwardness of her own. ‘I hate to ask,’ she said, ‘but do you have any idea exactly
how
interested your client might be in these particular papers?’
    Luke hesitated. He’d already given