by Tom Harper
I think of Symmachus’s slave somewhere in the palace basement. I imagine how he screamed.
‘Not without violence.’
‘Of course not.’ He’s agitated now. ‘We have to live in the world we have, not the world we’d wish for. If the work was easy, or painless, there’d have been no need for me. You, more than anyone, know what it cost.’
He leans forward on the altar, as if he can’t support his own weight any more. There’s something that needs to be said right now – a last chance to clear away the fog between us. This is the closest we’ve come to being honest in years. But I can’t speak.
‘I should be remembered for who I was.’ He’s almost pleading – though not with me. He’s speaking to eternity. ‘The things I achieved, not the price I paid. I deserve that much.’
He wants history to love him. ‘And you got Alexander to make sure of it.’
‘He knew everything – everything – and never judged me for it. That’s why I needed to know who killed him. That’s why I asked you.’
‘And then convicted the first convenient scapegoat?’
He’s more human, than I’ve seen him in years. ‘Haven’t you been listening? Don’t you understand?’
We’re not talking about Alexander and Symmachus any more. We face each other across the room, divided by the altar. The dying sun shoots shafts of crimson light into the air above us, and his twelve apostles bear blind witness. I know what I have to say.
But the words are hard. I weigh them, and the moment I do they’re like a boulder in my hand. I push, but it won’t move. I’m not Alexander. I can’t forgive him.
‘You united the empire. That will be your legacy.’
And? He waits for more, giving me every chance. When he sees there’s nothing, he gives a bitter laugh. ‘Didn’t you know? I’ve divided it between my sons. Claudius, Constantius and Constans will each inherit a third. Mundus est omnis divisus in partes tres.’ He laughs again, so desperate it sounds like he’s sobbing. ‘If only things had been different.’
If only things had been different. He can rewrite the past as much as he likes, but some facts are indelible.
‘Good luck against the Persians.’
His finger draws a line in the dust on the altar, then bisects it with another. ‘I’ll be glad to get away. Sometimes I feel this city’s killing me.’
I leave him alone in his mausoleum, dwarfed by the scaffolding of his unfinished dreams. Caught in the light, dust falls but never makes a sound.
XXVII
Kosovo – Present Day
HER THUMB SLIPPED off the flint. The flame went out and the tomb went black. She flicked the lighter again, rubbing her finger raw before it relit.
Michael was still there.
What do you say to a dead man? She’d been talking to him for weeks – interrogating, begging, cursing. And now he was here, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.
‘I got one of the bad guys outside the cave, but there might be more. And the Americans.’
‘I thought you were dead,’ she whispered.
‘Greatly exaggerated, like the man said.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Still time, of course.’
All she could do was stare at him. ‘How –?’
‘How did I find you? Or how did I end up not dead?’
‘How are we going to get out of here?’
‘Always practical. That’s what I loved about you.’ He took her hand in his and crouched in front of her. ‘God, I missed you, Abby. I’m so sorry about … everything.’
His hand was cold, but his breath was warm on her cheek. Through the dirt and smoke that clung to him, she caught the faintest sniff of his real scent – strong and mellow, like whisky on a winter’s night. That, more than anything, convinced her he might be real.
‘There’s a hut in the next valley. Dragović doesn’t know about it. I’ve been living there the last few days.’
She stared at him blankly. Joy, relief, gladness – those might all come later. For the moment, she felt hurt beyond all healing.
Michael put both hands on her cheeks and looked her in the eye.
‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
They left the tomb and hiked through the forest as fast as they could – Michael leading the way, Abby struggling to keep pace. The throb of the helicopter still shook the air, though the trees made it invisible. Every so often, short bursts of automatic weapon fire echoed up the valley.
‘That’s the Kosovo Police,’ said Michael. ‘Probably shooting at shadows. If they haven’t got Dragović by now, he’ll be safe into Serbia.’
They crested the ridge, still in the trees, and started descending the far slope. She couldn’t hear the gunfire any more, though the helicopter hadn’t gone away. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder. It flew right over them, shaking water drops off the wet trees, then slowly faded away.
‘At last vee are alone,’ Michael said, in a mock French accent. It was a line he’d often used in Pristina, when friends had left the flat after a long evening’s drinking. Hearing it here made her stomach lurch.
They didn’t stop, but carried on down the valley. The sun set behind the clouds; the air grew cold. Just when Abby thought she couldn’t go another step, they came out in a clearing where a small stone hut stood between two large trees. Not much to look at, but it had a chimney and a solid roof, and that was enough for Abby.
Michael didn’t dare light a fire – the wood in the forest was soaked anyway. Abby huddled under a mouse-eaten blanket on a camp bed, while Michael heated a can of beans on a gas stove.
‘So tell me again why you aren’t dead.’
‘Had you fooled, did I?’ He saw the anger rising and backtracked. ‘Sorry – joke. I know it isn’t funny.’
If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she’d have hit him. ‘It’s not a game.’
‘No, it is not.’ He pulled a cork out of a wine bottle and poured liquid into a steel cup. It came out clear as poison, with a kick she could smell from across the room.
‘Šlijvovica. Local moonshine. It’ll warm you up.’
She sipped it and wished she had a cigarette. The rough heat made her anger feel good.
‘Tell me everything,’ she ordered him. ‘Why were we at the villa? You knew it belonged to Dragović.’
He hesitated. The only light in the room was the small blue flame on the stove, silhouetting him in the corner.
‘Tell me the truth,’ she warned. The šlijvovica burned her throat, but it couldn’t touch her frozen core.
He turned towards her. ‘I knew it was his villa. I’d arranged to go there to hand over some things he wanted.’
‘From the tomb?’
‘Yes.’ He thought a moment. ‘I don’t know how much you found out, or figured out, but here’s the background. A patrol of American KFOR troops found that cave and wrote it up. The report came up to Pristina and landed on my desk. One of life’s happy coincidences.’
‘You made the connection with Dragović?’
‘I knew he was doolally for the Romans. I’d been trying to get close to his organisation for a while.’
‘Close?’
‘A sting. Infiltrate his circles and bring him down.’ He held his head still. She thought he was staring at her, though his eyes were invisible in the darkness.
‘You weren’t working for him?’
‘Is that what they told you?’ He reached forward and put his hand on her arm, but she jerked it away. She wasn’t ready for that. ‘Christ, Abby. Is that what you thought I was?’
‘I thought you were dead.’
On the stove the pan bubbled and spat.
‘You know all about Dragović, I suppose. He’s the most evil man in the Balkans, and that takes some doing.’
He fiddled with the knob of the stove, adjusting the heat.
‘You remember Irina?’
Abby nodded. To her, Irina had been a black-and-white photograph on a bookshelf in Michael’s flat – gloss
y hair, pale skin, dark eyes watching the room, like the missing person pictures taped to the railings of the government building in Pristina. She’d only asked Michael about the picture once, thinking she must be family. She died in the war, he’d said, and changed the conversation.
‘Irina was one of Dragović’s victims during the ’99 war. I’m not going to tell you what he had done to her, but I’ve read the reports. You can probably use your imagination.’
And that did stall her anger. She knew all the stories. Whatever vile, cruel or inhuman torture men could devise, it had probably happened in Kosovo during the war. There’d even been rumours of prisoners herded across the border to Albania to have their organs harvested for sale to rich buyers in the West.
‘Dragović is the reason I came back to the Balkans. When this find of Roman artefacts turned up, I thought I could use it to get to him. I baited the hook – and he bit.’
‘The Foreign Office thought you were corrupt.’
‘I had to go vigilante. You know how it is with MMA.’
MMA was Monitor, Mentor and Advise – the EULEX mission’s official role in post-independence Kosovo. It meant working alongside the local authorities, trying to prod and cajole them into some semblance of honest functioning. It was an uphill battle.
‘Half the Kosovo government report to Dragović. MMA means they see everything. Anything that goes on paper or in an e-mail at headquarters, it’s on Dragović’s desk before it’s reached the top floor. If I’d done this officially …’ He sighed. ‘I went off the reservation, Abby, and I took you with me, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that.’
‘Why did you get me involved?’
‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I knew EULEX were after me because they thought I was in bed with Dragović. Fair enough. Dragović’s people were sniffing around to see if I was on the level, so actually the internal investigation made it look better. But it was tough. I didn’t want EULEX bursting in on my meeting at the villa, just when I was starting to get somewhere. You know there’s nothing the EU people hate more than working a weekend. I thought if you came away with me, they’d decide it was nothing and leave us alone.’
He spooned the beans out on to the plate and handed it to her. ‘Only one plate. Sorry I’m not geared up for hosting.’
She pushed it away – she wasn’t hungry – but he held on. ‘When was the last time you ate?’
He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You need food. We don’t have much time.’
She took the plate. The moment the first spoonful went in, she realised she’d been ravenous.
‘Things went wrong.’ Michael sat back on a log, rocking back and forth. ‘It was never supposed to be dangerous. Dragović was going to send his man – his name was Sloba – to pick up the artefacts, and that was it. You and I would have a nice weekend, and I’d be one step closer to Dragović.’
‘It didn’t work out that way.’
‘Sloba was twitchy as hell from the start. He might have come with orders to kill me, I don’t know. When you came out on the pool terrace, he jumped to a conclusion.’
‘He threw you over the cliff,’ Abby reminded him.
‘Even Zoltán Dragović needs to have his pool cleaned. There’s a small access gantry a few feet below the edge of the cliff. I landed on it.’
‘Lucky.’
‘By the time I’d got back up to the villa, Sloba had caught up with you. I …’ He broke off, staring deep into the darkness. ‘I killed him. It’s a hell of a thing. In the moment … Afterwards …’
A long silence. When he spoke again, some of the colour had returned to his voice.
‘I called an ambulance. Then I threw Sloba’s body over the cliff and made damn sure he missed the gantry. By then, I could see the ambulance coming down the drive. So I ran. Hardest thing I ever did, Abby, leaving you. Harder than killing a man.’
‘And the body? Jenny, your sister, she said it was you. Did she know?’
‘I never dreamed they’d think Sloba was me. You were in a coma and surrounded by police: I called Jenny because she was the only person I could trust. She said the local police wanted her to identify a body. I told her to do it. So much easier to avoid awkward questions if everyone thinks you’re dead.’
‘Easier?’ The hurt and shock and betrayal that had been smouldering inside her suddenly erupted in a flash of anger. ‘Easier to leave me thinking you were dead? Easier to have me stumbling around Europe wondering why people kept trying to kill me? Is that what you call easy?’
Michael put his head in his hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I didn’t ask for any of this.’
‘I know. I owe you an apology – an explanation – so much.’ He lifted his head, searching for forgiveness. ‘Dragović was after you. He knew something wasn’t right. The fact that Sloba’s body was missing, for starters. He might have heard rumours that I’d been seen: not much happens in this part of the world that he doesn’t hear about. And he guessed there was something I’d been holding back from him.’
He waited for her to respond. She knew she shouldn’t – she wasn’t nearly ready to give up her anger yet – but somehow she found herself saying: ‘The scroll?’
Michael’s eyes lit up. ‘You found it?’
‘I went to Trier. I saw Doctor Gruber.’
‘Did he decode it?’
‘Only a few words.’ She tried to remember, then realised with a start she didn’t have to. She patted her jeans pocket. The piece of paper Gruber had given her made a wad against her thigh, softened where rain had seeped into it.
She opened the paper, peeling apart the damp folds, and read the poem. To reach the living, navigate the dead. The words resonated strangely as she said them. She’d been navigating a world where Michael was dead; now here he was, living and breathing.
‘Do you know what it means?’
‘No idea,’ Michael said. ‘But I couldn’t bear the idea of something like that being lost for ever because I’d given it to Dragović. And it was worth holding something back for a second pass. I found Doctor Gruber online and turned up on his doorstep. Even if I had to give away the scroll in the end, I wanted to make sure the information on it would survive. Whatever was in that tomb, it means something to Dragović. He thinks there’s more to it.’
She passed him the plate and took another sip of the clear brandy. It burned her tongue, but at least it felt real.
‘So what do you want to do?’
‘I think Dragović can be had. I don’t know what he wants, but he’s turned half of Europe upside down looking for it. He’s not thinking straight.’
That makes two of you, Abby thought.
‘He’s breaking his own rules on getting involved: he’s left himself vulnerable. If we can get to it – whatever it is – before him …’
‘He’ll crush you.’
‘Not if we’re careful.’
We. It was the second time he’d said it. It sounded so natural, almost inevitable.
‘You,’ she said firmly. ‘You already died once – and nearly killed me, too. If you want to go off on some revenge fantasy tilting at Dragović, you’re on your own.’
Michael nodded. ‘Of course – I presumed – sorry. Where are you going to go?’
Such a mild question, but it stripped away the layers of shock and anger to leave nothing but raw terror. Where am I going to go? To a cold flat in Clapham that stank of a failed marriage? To a desk job in the Foreign Office – if they even let her back in the building after everything she’d been involved in?
She was lost. Michael read it in her face. ‘You can’t stay in the Balkans. Dragović has eyes on every street corner between Vienna and Istanbul. He’ll eat you alive.’
‘Am I supposed to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder?’
‘Who’s going to protect you? You won’t get a NATO helicopter flying in every time you’re in trouble. The EU? The British government?’
The vision of J
essop’s body lying in the mud was the only answer she could come up with.
‘Why did you spend ten years of your life tramping around deserts and jungles? So you could nail people like Dragović, right?’
Abby looked at her hands. ‘I gave up on saving the world.’
‘You can’t.’ Michael leaned forward, a shadow in the gloom. ‘That Roman guy in the tomb – you know what he was doing in this God-fucking-forsaken place? Patrolling the frontiers of civilisation to keep the barbarians out. That’s what we have to do, Abby. Because if you don’t stamp on the barbarians, they’re all over you before you know it. Look at Yugoslavia or Rwanda or Germany in the thirties. One moment you’re in a nice, middle-class country washing your car on Sunday afternoon. The next, you’re hacking up your neighbour with a machete or pumping him full of Zyklon B.’
‘What are you saying? That this mess you’re in is somehow like fighting the Nazis?’
‘I’m saying please. Help me do this. For my sake, and Irina, and all the good people who’ve suffered because a shit like Dragović thinks no one will stop him. And do it for yourself. You’re not going to escape until he’s put away.’
Michael scoured the bowl to get the last of the sauce out. The spoon scraped the metal like a knife being sharpened.
She needed more time. Choices swirled around her head, offering infinite consequences, but no answers. In the fog, her mind went back to some of the mundane places she’d been in her life: a warehouse in Bosnia, a technical school in Rwanda. Places that the full authority of the international community had once declared safe havens. Thousands had gone there – trusting, praying, clinging to hope until it was too late. The only haven for most of them had been the silence of a mass grave.
‘Where are you going to go?’ she asked. Buying time.
‘There’s a man in Belgrade who knows about this kind of thing,’ Michael said. ‘I took some photographs of the tomb; I want to see if he has any ideas.’
And the moment he said it, she knew she would go to Belgrade – and, afterwards, wherever else this mad chase led. Not to save the world, or for love of Michael, or revenge, but because the only choice she had was to wait or to run. And she was tired of waiting.
