Secrets of the Dead

by Tom Harper

The rain was falling hard and unforgiving by the time they pulled into the car park at Camp Bondsteel. They ran up the path between the blast walls and the wire. White tank traps serrated the road like teeth. By the time they reached the guard station, they were both soaked.

  The guards had changed since the day before: there was no one to recognise Abby, and no fuss when Jessop presented his credentials. A captain in a high-collared jacket met them and ushered them into a green Toyota Landcruiser.

  ‘You’re here to meet with Specialist Sanchez?’

  ‘He’s not expecting us,’ said Jessop.

  ‘He’s down in South Town. I’ll drive you over.’

  Abby got in the back and stared out the window as they drove along wide, rammed-earth roads. Everywhere she looked, the landscape’s rolling hills had been forced into rigid grids: lines of cars, lines of huts, and straight roads connecting them.

  Yet for all its size, there was something desolate about the base. They drove for several minutes, past long rows of brown huts, and barely saw a soul. There were no tanks or Humvees: most of the vehicles they saw were civilian Landcruisers like their own. On one stretch, a row of huge tents provided helicopter hangers, strangely impermanent in this re-engineered landscape.

  ‘Is it true you’ve got a Burger King here?’ Jessop asked the captain.

  ‘And a Taco Bell. I’ve been here eleven months and never eaten in either of them.’ He laughed. ‘Just like being back home.’

  ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘North Dakota.’

  If he resented being shipped halfway round the world to police age-old feuds, in a country that was probably the size of the average farm back in his home state, he didn’t show it. Abby thought of Rome, and wondered if this was how the last days of the empire had been. A few men far from home, shrinking into a fortress built for greater times. Or perhaps frontiers had always been like this: lonely, removed places where barbarians lurked and the rain fell.

  The captain parked the Landcruiser at the side of the road and led them on to a veranda along the front of the densely packed SEA huts. They came to a door, knocked and entered.

  Specialist Anthony Sanchez was sitting on a wooden bunk, playing an Xbox on a forty-inch TV screen perched on a steel chair. He was tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a khaki T-shirt that left plenty of room for his gym-worked biceps. He looked around as the door opened. On screen, a racing car careered off the road and exploded in a fireball.

  ‘I guess you’re why they told me not to go out today.’ The brim of his patrol cap sat low on his face, covering his eyes. His voice was husky, his features surprisingly delicate for the strong body.

  ‘I’ll wait in the car,’ the captain said.

  Sanchez punched the power on the television. Without its light, the room was so dim they could barely see him. He reached across to the facing bunk and swept a pizza box off it. ‘Sorry we don’t have crumpets or tea or none of that.’

  Jessop sat. ‘Tell me about Michael Lascaris.’

  The patrol cap turned from Abby to Jessop, then down to the floor. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘You brought a body in to the Forensics department together,’ Abby said. ‘It’s your signature on the docket.’

  The cap didn’t move. Rain drummed on the roof of the hut. A long, slow sibilant escaped from Sanchez’s lips: maybe a drawn-out expletive, or just the air deflating from him.

  ‘I haven’t seen Mr Lascaris in a while.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Jessop told him.

  ‘I don’t really follow the news.’ Sanchez fiddled with the game controller in his hand, thumbing the joystick in aimless circles.

  ‘Tell me how you met Michael,’ Abby said.

  ‘In a bar.’

  ‘That sounds right.’

  ‘He came to find me here on base. He was a civilian, but I guess he knew his way around. Bought me some beers, it was all cool. Then he said he read a report I put in from one of the LMT missions.’

  ‘LMT?’ Jessop queried.

  ‘Liaison and Monitoring Team. My unit. We go out in teams of three in an SUV and talk to the locals, feed it up the chain of command. Bridge-building, right?’

  ‘What was your report about?’

  ‘Up north, round about Nothing Hill. We were in this mahallah –’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A mahallah. You know, like a village? Anyways, we were talking to some guys up there, and some farmer rides up on his Kosovo Harley.’ He saw they didn’t understand. ‘You’ve seen them, right? They take a garden rotovator, put on some wheels instead of the blades, then bolt a handcart on the back of it to make like a pick-up. We call them Kosovo Harleys.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Abby. Jessop looked mystified.

  ‘This guy says he thinks his neighbour’s got a weapons stash on his land. He’s an upstanding citizen and he wants us to know. Truth to tell, he probably wants the field for himself. So what, right? We go and look where he says, and sure enough there’s a hole and a cave with a couple of rusted AKs and some sidearms. It’s a big deal, but it’s not that big a deal. Where it gets crazy is when we shine our flashlights around. This place – it isn’t just a cave. It’s like a tomb or something, old paintings on the walls and a big-ass stone coffin.’

  The rain beat harder than ever. All Abby could see of Sanchez was his silhouette against the barred window.

  ‘And that was where you found the body?’

  ‘Not then. We had a mission. We took the guns and called the cops to arrest the landowner. The CO put a guard on the door. Then we came home. It’s not really our sector – we’re Battle-Group East, and that was way north. We were just up there generating some goodwill.’

  Goodwill to whom? Abby wondered.

  ‘I wrote it down in a report, and a week later Mr Lascaris showed up in the bar asking if he could see this place. I told him sure, but it ain’t going to be on the clock. I only go where they tell me. And two days later, the staff sergeant calls me in and says I’m assigned to escort a civilian on a fact-finding mission. He was kind of pissed about it because it screwed up his schedule, but Michael was one of those guys, he made things happen.’

  You can say that again.

  ‘We went north towards Mitrovica, back to the cave. Like I said, Battle-Group North had put a guard on it, Norwegian dude, but Michael had some fancy paperwork and it was no problem. We went in there with some pry-bars and hammers. Michael points to the coffin and says, “Let’s get that thing opened up.”’

  The rain had eased. The only sound in the room was the drip of water from the eaves outside.

  ‘Now I did two tours in Iraq before I came here, and I saw some shit. But this was freaky. It was dark as hell in there, and I’m thinking about King Tut’s curse and all that History Channel bullshit. And that lid was heavy. Almost bust my fingers lifting it – specially when I saw what was inside.’

  ‘A skeleton,’ said Abby. She remembered the empty sockets, the waxy bones against the steel table.

  Sanchez’s head flicked up at her. ‘Guess you seen it, too. We wrapped that thing in a tarp and carried it out, right past the guard. Michael wanted to take the coffin lid, too, but there was no way we were carrying that thing. He took some pictures of the paintings on the walls, and the vase –’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The vase.’ He pronounced it the American way, to rhyme with ‘haze’. ‘Like a clay bottle, about the size of a forty-ounce of malt liquor. It was inside the coffin with the dead guy, all sealed up with wax or something.’

  ‘Did Michael open it?’

  ‘Not that I saw. We got out of there pretty fast. The Norwegian was on his radio and Michael started to get antsy. We drove off with the dead guy in the trunk. Like Goodfellas.’

  Sanchez took off his cap and twisted it between his fingers. For the first time, Abby could see his eyes, twin points of light in the darkness.

  ‘That’s how it was. I just did what he told me. I didn’t
think nothing would come of it.’

  I feel your pain, Abby thought. I’m in the same boat.

  ‘Did Michael give any sense of why he was interested?’ Jessop asked.

  ‘He talked all the time, but he didn’t say much, if you know what I mean. I asked him what it was all about. He told me it was just routine procedure.’

  ‘You didn’t believe that.’

  ‘No, but what the hell? It’s not against the Geneva Convention to take a body to a morgue, especially with it being dead a few hundred years. Like I said, I just do what they tell me. Some dead Roman guy’s not my problem.’

  Abby looked up sharply. ‘How did you know it was Roman? Did Michael say that?’

  ‘Maybe, I guess. I don’t recall. But I’m Catholic, I’ve been in plenty of churches. I knew the writing was Latin.’

  ‘What writing?’

  ‘The writing on the coffin.’

  XXIV

  Constantinople – April 337

  SOMEWHERE IN THIS palace a man’s being tortured. It shouldn’t be happening. The law says you can’t torture someone, even a slave, except in cases of treason. Of course the law’s flexible: treason’s a subjective crime. You can redefine it, if you have the power, but it still takes time. Somebody had to find a lawyer in the middle of the night, draft an exemption, get the correct secretaries in the chancery to fix the correct seals – all before they can turn the first screw.

  Somebody’s taking this seriously.

  I ought to be there making notes. Instead, I’ve gathered up all the lamps I can find and shut myself in a storeroom with Alexander’s document case. I don’t understand what’s happened this evening, but I’ve seen rotten justice often enough to know the smell. I’ve also got a shrewd idea that a lot of the questions in the dungeon are going to be about the papers in my hand. Soon, someone’s going to remember that I brought the case to the palace.

  And it’s slow work. The papers are pages of all different sizes, written in different inks and hands; mostly in Greek, though a few in Latin. I concentrate on those, though it’s hard to read when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Some are letters or memoranda from the imperial archives; others seem to be excerpts from books. I can’t find a theme.

  One:

  To the Emperor Constantine Augustus, from the Caesar Crispus. A heavy storm delayed our preparations and destroyed three ships, but the fleet is now ready and will sail tomorrow.

  Another, a poem:

  To reach the living, navigate the dead.

  A third:

  XII / Π I’m writing with deepest condolence for the death of your grandson.

  I sneeze, and curse as papers fly off my makeshift table. The room’s full of dust. A dozen carved stone panels, each the weight of a horse, lean against the walls, waiting to be mounted in one of Constantine’s new monuments. Marble soldiers frozen in battle knock against my legs.

  I pick up another fragment. The lamps gutter and flicker; my eyes are tired, unused to so much reading. My own name leaps out of the page at me.

  Granted by order of the Augustus to Gaius Valerius Maximus: put all the resources of the imperial post at his disposal and give him whatever he requests to speed his journey to Pula.

  There’s a date, but I don’t need to check it. The world’s gone dim; I think one of the lamps must have blown out. I put down the paper and lean my weight on the marble plaque.

  What was Alexander doing with this?

  The door flies open. The rush of air blows up the papers; one lands next to a lamp and catches fire. I flap at it, but my movements are numb and clumsy. Simeon runs in from the door, throws it on the floor and stamps it out before the whole pile goes up.

  ‘They want to see you.’

  He gathers the papers and folds them into the bag. When we met, I could have charged him with murder. Now, all I can do is follow him. Two guards from the Schola are in the corridor to escort us: along dark and empty halls, where painted figures make shadows against the gold; past tree-filled courtyards where slaves are sweeping up the blossom that’s fallen that day; back to the audience hall where four days ago Constantine ordered me to find Alexander’s killer.

  This time there’s a proper audience. Eusebius, immaculate even at this late hour in a heavily embroidered robe. Flavius Ursus in full, burnished uniform. Ablabius, the Praetorian Prefect, and the two consuls Felicianus and Titianus. And Constantine himself on an ivory throne, dressed in so many jewels and gold you can barely glimpse the man underneath. Strands of sea pearls hang from his crown, running over his cheeks like tears.

  Yet for all the raw power in the room, there’s something furtive about this gathering. The great chandelier hanging over the throne makes a bright circle underneath, but the light doesn’t stretch far. Beyond it, the empty hall is a dark and vast rebuke.

  ‘Gaius Valerius Maximus.’ For once, Eusebius greets me without a sneer. ‘You’ve done excellent work. The Augustus was right to put his faith in you.’

  Before I can react to this unwanted compliment, the door opens again. Four guards march Symmachus in. Since I saw him a few hours ago he’s put on his toga trimmed with purple. He’s dressed in a hurry: one end of the toga’s come untucked and is threatening to unravel completely. His hair is a mess, like a mangy dog in the last stages of a disease.

  Eusebius steps forward as prosecutor.

  ‘Aurelius Symmachus is accused of the murder of the most holy and godly Bishop Alexander of Cyrene.’

  No one’s told Symmachus anything, though he must have suspected. He clings to his stick like a drowning man in a storm.

  ‘You were in the library that day.’

  Symmachus nods.

  ‘You knew Alexander was there.’

  He looks as if he might deny it, then thinks better of it. He doesn’t want to make it easy for Eusebius.

  ‘This evening you went for a walk near the statue of Venus. Gaius Valerius saw you there.’

  No one asks me to confirm it, but Symmachus has something to say.

  ‘I walk there every evening. Anyone who knows me would have known to find me there.’

  Simeon’s still holding the document case. Eusebius takes it from him and holds it up. Something changes on Symmachus’s face, though I can’t tell if he recognises it. Perhaps I’m being too generous. I want to believe his innocence.

  ‘Have you seen this before?’

  Symmachus tugs on his toga, which is in danger of slipping off his bony shoulder. ‘No.’

  ‘It belonged to Bishop Alexander. This evening, after you had met Valerius, your slave tried to dispose of it and was caught in the act.’

  ‘He’s lying.’

  ‘He’s testified under torture that you ordered him to do it.’

  ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t have tortured him.’

  It’s a rare flash of anger, but it does him no good.

  ‘You were less scrupulous when you had Christians in your power.’ Spit flecks from Eusebius’s mouth. His face is alight with revenge. ‘You were a notorious persecutor and hater of Christians, though when the Augustus Constantine destroyed the arch-persecutors Galerius and Licinius he showed you every forgiveness. But when you saw Alexander of Cyrene in the library that day, the violence in your nature took over. You beat the life out of him, using a bust of your false ideologue Hierocles as the weapon.’

  Symmachus hears out the charge in silence. No theatrical denials, no falling to his knees and clutching the Emperor’s feet. He hasn’t come to a secret court in the dead of night expecting to prove his innocence. When Eusebius has finished, he simply shakes his head and says a firm, ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps it was simply because he was a Christian. Perhaps you never forgave the fact that he defied you in your own dungeon, that he defeated you. You hated him for it.’

  ‘I respected his courage. It was the men who broke that I despised. Men like …’ He pauses, searching for the name. ‘Asterius.’

  ‘Enough!’ Even Eusebius seems surpri
sed by the force of his reaction. Perhaps he’s thinking of his friend’s mutilated arms, the life sentence he received for betraying his faith. He draws a deep breath and turns to Constantine.

  ‘Lord, there were no other witnesses to Alexander’s tragic death. The only man who saw it was the killer.’ An arm shoots out towards Symmachus. ‘That man. And having killed him in the most barbaric way conceivable, he stole his papers. Who knows why? Perhaps he thought he could use Alexander’s knowledge against the Church. But as the Augustus’s net closed around him, as the diligent Gaius Valerius tracked down the murderer, he panicked. He worried that the bag would be found. So he ordered his slave to get rid of it.’

  ‘All lies.’

  My head’s spinning as I listen to my own story being rewritten in front of me. I look at Constantine. His face is as blank as glass, but he catches my glance and turns ever so fractionally to meet it.

  Do you want a culprit? Or do you want me to find out who actually did it?

  I don’t believe any of it. If Symmachus wanted to get rid of the document case why not just throw it in the harbour or burn it? Why send a slave to hand it over exactly where he’d be taking his evening stroll? Someone is setting Symmachus up to take the blame. The only real question is who?

  Constantine’s still watching me. So is Symmachus. Is this my chance to save an innocent man? I’ve spent the last five days investigating this murder, but now that it’s come to this sudden trial I can’t think of anything to say. I don’t have any lines in this play they’re acting out. I’m a prop, a blunt instrument to be wielded by others. In that respect, I’m not much different to Symmachus.

  The imperial gaze moves on. Symmachus looks away, his last hope gone. The disgust on his face condemns me.

  Constantine stares down and says a single word.

  ‘Deportatio.’

  Exile. Symmachus will be stripped of his property, his citizenship, his family and his rights. Legally, he’ll cease to exist.

  Symmachus closes his eyes. His whole body is trembling; the only thing keeping him upright must be pride. I remember what Porfyrius said about him. He’s a Stoic. Outward things cannot touch his soul. I don’t think his philosophy is much help now.