Secrets of the Dead

Nikolic frowned. ‘The whole poem is very full of Christian Neoplatonist thought. But here there is a historical parallel also. The Emperor Constantine had a son named Crispus – a successful general, a loyal deputy and his presumed heir.’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ Abby said.

‘In 326 Constantine had him murdered. Not only murdered, but erased also from history. The Roman state had a policy called damnatio memoriae – the damnation of the memory – for disgraced senior officials. They become an unperson, if you like George Orwell. The statues are torn down or defaced, the inscriptions removed, the histories edited. Constantine’s official biographer, Eusebius, rewrote his book to exclude any mention that Crispus ever existed. We only know because copies of both editions have survived.’

‘What did Crispus do to piss him off?’ Michael asked.

‘No one knows. The earliest reference to the killing comes nearly two hundred years later, in the work of a pagan historian who wants to discredit Constantine. He says Crispus was poisoned for allegedly having an affair with Constantine’s second wife, Fausta, who died as well that year.’

‘This family sounds like The Sopranos.’

‘You said it was strange that the poem references the death,’ Abby said. ‘Strange because it should have been edited out?’

‘Several of Porfyrius’s other surviving poems praise Crispus. Historians assume this means he wrote them before 326, when Crispus was still favoured. But to write a poem that mentions Crispus after his death – even more, one that seems to refer to his murder – doesn’t help the poet. In fact, he risks his own execution.’

‘And where does all this get us?’ Michael asked. Impatience was never far away.

By way of answer, Nikolic flipped the indicator and pulled off the motorway. He nodded to the road sign.

‘Sremska Mitrovica,’ he announced.

Night had fallen; a light rain had begun again, glossing the streets and dappling the windscreen. Abby looked out through the reflected neon smeared on the windows, taking in the puddles and empty doorways as they drove through the deserted town. It felt like the last place on earth, a film noir set that had fallen through a wormhole.

‘In Roman times this was a great city of the empire,’ Nikolic said. ‘Sirmium, it was called – capital of the Emperor Galerius. In fact, it is here that Constantine’s son Crispus was proclaimed Caesar.’

‘It’s gone downhill,’ Michael observed.

Nikolic pulled up against the kerb opposite the bus station.

‘Last stop,’ he announced. ‘From here, you can go to Zagreb, Budapest, Vienna – wherever you want. Me, I go home to my boys.’

Abby looked at the photograph tucked behind the gearstick, two boys in their cowboy hats and the sheriffs’ stars. She imagined Nikolic parking outside his flat, the screams of delight as his children heard him coming up the stairs. A warm home and dinner on the table, and the concern in his sister’s eyes, asking Where have you been?

On impulse, she leaned across and planted an awkward kiss on his cheek. ‘Thank you for everything.’

He looked embarrassed. ‘Be careful, OK?’

‘You too. Don’t publish that poem until it’s safe.’

‘How will I know?’

‘We’ll be in touch.’

‘Unless you see us on the news first,’ Michael added.

Abby got out. The rain was harder than it had looked from inside the car, wetting her face almost at once. She slammed the door and ran across the pavement into the shelter of a doorway. Nikolic waved, then pulled away.

‘What now?’

As if he’d heard the loneliness in her voice, Michael put his arms around her and hugged her close. He nodded towards the bus station. ‘We have to get out of Serbia. Dragovic has the whole country covered.’

‘Do you think it was his people in the park this afternoon?’ Had it only been that afternoon? Her memories had begun to collapse in on themselves again, a house of cards falling flat and shuffled out of order.

‘Maybe Dragovic’s people. Or Giacomo’s. Or both. Giacomo wouldn’t hesitate to sell us out if he saw a profit.’ He glanced at the bus station. ‘All the more reason to be on our way.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ She pulled away, looking up into his face. ‘I don’t have a passport.’

‘I work for the customs service.’ He pushed back a damp lock of hair from her face and smiled. ‘The fact that you don’t have an umbrella – that’s something to worry about.’

He took her arm. Down a side street, littered with junk food wrappers, they found a travel agent. Faded posters taped to the window showed Air Yugo planes soaring against a blue sky; socialist families smiling on socialist beaches in Dalmatia or the Crimea. More recent signs advertised discount international calls, foreign currency, SIM cards. And in the bottom corner, framed by flashing Christmas lights, a cardboard sign in red felt-tipped letters offered VISAS.

A woman in a black dress with dusty grey hair sat behind a trestle table, reading a gossip webpage on a black laptop.

‘I’d like a passport for my sister,’ Michael said in Serbian, gesturing to Abby. ‘Her aunt in Zagreb is very ill and she must go at once.’

The woman frowned. ‘The passport office is shut.’