Now a major motion picture

Langdon held the print in his hand and ran his eye along the frame.

"Look here, there's a word," he said, holding the frame closer to the light so Sophie could see.

Sophie squinted. "B. E. I. O." she said. "Beio? What does that mean?"

"Beio is a place in Cameroon... maybe the next clue is there. The B is written in lower case. Perhaps that's significant."

"Wait," Sophie said, grabbing the frame from Langdon. "They taught us this at Cryptography school."

Langdon watched open-mouthed as she turned the entire print upside down.

"Look at the word now," Sophie said, smiling.

"Oh, it's not a word at all!" Langdon laughed. "It's a number! 0. 1. 3. 9. 0139."

"One hundred and thirty nine," Sophie said. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"Hmmm... there was an Aztec sect that believed there were 139 deadly sins. They were big of sin, the Aztecs. And of course, Jesus lived at 0139c Tabgha Mews, Nazareth. The Grannenites of Hove believe that God created the universe in 139 days because he was using PRINCE2 methodology..."

"Hmmm, nothing that can help us now," Sophie said. She cast a critical eye over the print.

"Maybe the clue is in the picture itself."

Langdon looked over her shoulder.

"That's the picture? I thought it was just the backing paper."

Sophie scowled. "No!" she said. "It's modern art. I quite like it. It's synaesthetic."

"Bless you," Langdon said, absent-mindedly handing Sophie a tissue. "So you think the clue is in the stripes?"

"Maybe," Sophie said. "If only we had one of those laser things like they have in Tescos."

"Maybe we could ask the artist?" Langdon suggested.

"It's a bit late for that," Sophie said, biting her lip.

"You mean... Dead?"

Sophie pointed over to a figure lying face down in a pool of light further down the gallery. It was wearing a full-length ballgown and clutching a bottle of red wine in an outstretched hand. Langdon had assumed it was another "installation."

"She found out they had a free bar," Sophie said. "We'll get nowt out of her until tomorrow lunchtime."

Now you too can join the adventure!
Buy an original print of "0139" and help crack

THE CURRAN CODE

(And help make a bit of money for Sparkle too.)