Secrets of the Dead

old guard, men who might object to the new settlement. Among them, I notice Porfyrius’s name.

‘Find these men. Tell them that if or when the Augustus’s sons take power, they’ve got nothing to fear.’

‘Have they got anything to fear?’

He gives me a crooked look. ‘Just tell them.’ He sees my reluctance and growls. ‘I’m doing you a favour, Gaius – for old times’ sake. I’m giving you a chance to prove your loyalty.’

He jerks his head over his shoulder, at the generals and tribunes congregated in the courtyard. ‘Not everyone would give you that. There are rumours, and with your history …’

He pats me on the shoulder.

‘Now get out, while you have the chance.’

XLI

Split, Croatia – Present Day

ABBY SAT IN the hotel room. It was the nicest place she’d been in a week – Egyptian cotton on the bed, Swiss chocolates under the pillows and Welsh mineral water in the fridge. She barely noticed. She sat hunched on the bed, her knees pulled up against her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs.

Across the room, a woman in a red skirt and a cream jumper sat in a wingback chair. She must have been about the same age as Abby, though far more robust: a strong, big-limbed body; an athletic rosiness on her cheeks and long, honey-coloured hair worn loose. She said her name was Connie. She didn’t try to make conversation, but sat there watching Abby, occasionally looking down to fiddle with the BlackBerry in her hand.

In the corner, a man in a black fleece leaned against the door, arms folded. The curtains were drawn, the lights tastefully low, but he still wore a pair of sunglasses. Something bulged under the fleece, brutish like a tumor. Connie called him Barry.

The remnants of a chicken salad lay on a plate beside her. At least her captors had let her order room service. She’d eaten their food and told them everything. The tomb, the scroll, the poem and Gruber. A Roman soldier who’d been stabbed seventeen hundred years ago; and Michael, who jumped off a cliff and came back again. She’d told them about the labarum, Constantine’s unconquerable standard, how Dragovic wanted it and how the poem and the necklace might lead to it. The only person she left out was Dr Nikolic, whose one crime had been helping them. By the time she’d finished, she felt as though there was nothing left in her.

Someone knocked discreetly at the door and murmured something. Barry raised his sunglasses and put his eye to the peephole. Satisfied, he dropped the safety bolt and took three steps back.

Mark entered, holding a piece of paper.

‘The good Germans in Trier just faxed this through. A printout from Dr Gruber’s computer. Apparently, they were quite upset to find out he’d been moonlighting for wanted criminals.’

The jewellery box sat on a chest of drawers next to the television. Mark took out the necklace and laid it on the bed with the fax. He took a pen from his jacket.

‘Show me how it works.’

She leaned forward and aligned the necklace with the poem. The original had been blurred; the fax was muddier still. But she’d spent so long staring at it on the bus from Serbia, puzzling out the letters one by one, she found they came more easily now. She traced the outline of the necklace on the paper, boxing in the letters, then lifted off the necklace. This time, she could see what she’d connected. Starting from the top of the monogram, she read:

‘CONSTANTINUS INVICTUS IMP AUG XXI.’

Mark made her read it again, then wrote it out on a blank sheet of paper.

‘I’ve got a classicist from Oxford waiting on the line – someone who’s worked for us before. We’ll see what he makes of it.’

Abby looked up. It would have taken a lot to make her laugh just then, but she managed a bleak smile.

‘I can save you the phone bill. “Constantine the Unconquered Emperor Augustus, twenty-one.”’

‘What else?’

‘That’s it.’

‘But that’s just his name.’ He brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes. ‘And what does twenty-one mean?’

She slumped back. ‘Ask your expert.’

Mark disappeared into the bathroom. The noise of the extractor fan drowned anything Abby might have heard – not that it mattered. When Mark came out, he looked baffled and angry.

‘He gave the same translation. Twenty-one probably means the twenty-first year of Constantine’s reign, which would date the poem to 326 or 327. For what that’s worth.’

It jogged something in Abby’s memory – something Nikolic had said.

‘The labarum was still around in the ninth century. A Byzantine historian wrote about it.’

‘Is there a point to this history lesson?’

‘So even if this poem is about the labarum, it’s not going to tell you where it’s hidden. The Byzantine emperors had it on open display for another five hundred years.’

Mark stared at her blankly. ‘It doesn’t tell us anything – that’s the point.’ He kicked the leg of the bed. ‘This whole thing’s bonkers.’