Secrets of the Dead

‘On his face.’

Simeon touches his forehead. ‘The wound was here.’

‘A clean wound, like a knife would make?’

He thinks I’m being obtuse. ‘I told you it was smashed in. Broken open.’

It doesn’t make sense. If the Bishop was sitting facing the window, back to the room, the back of his head would have been the obvious target. But the blood on the book supports the deacon’s story.

I pull out the monogrammed necklace Constantine gave me.

‘You found this?’

‘On the floor, next to the body.’

‘Did you recognise it?’

‘It wasn’t Alexander’s.’

‘And do you know who killed him?’

The question surprises him. It’s so obvious, he thinks it must be a trick. He stares at me, looking for the trap, then realises that silence doesn’t make him look good either.

‘He was dead when I found him.’

I let my impatience show, playing on his nerves. ‘I know he was dead. But whoever did this didn’t walk away spotless. He must have had blood on his clothes, or his hands.’ I let my gaze drop to Simeon’s ink-stained hands. He clenches his fists.

‘I didn’t see anyone.’

‘Did you hear anything?’ This as much to the librarian – perhaps his ears compensate for his struggling eyes. But he’s already shaking his head.

‘They’re building a new church next door. Every day, all we hear is noise and workmen. It’s almost too loud to read. “Eripient somnum Druso vitulisque marinis,” as Juvenal says.’

I’m not interested in his erudition. Constantine once said that men show off their learning when they have nothing else to say for themselves. My eyes drift away.

And catch something. A spray of blood on the shelved scrolls, well away from where the body was. I push past the librarian, almost knocking him into his beloved manuscripts.

My foot kicks against something in the shadows on the floor. It rolls away, deeper into shadow. Simeon moves to pick it up, but I wave him back and kneel down myself. The floor’s dusty, littered with broken fragments of wax and fine threads of papyrus. As my hand searches the darkness, I feel something cool and smooth under my fingers. When I pick it up, I see a small bust carved in black marble, about the size of a man’s fist. The face has wise features and sightless eyes, though both are obscured by the blood matted onto it. I guess this was the last face Alexander saw before it smashed his brains in.

‘Who is this?’

‘The name is inscribed on the base,’ says the librarian. He can’t bring himself to look.

I turn it over. ‘Hierocles.’

I don’t recognise the name – or perhaps I’ve heard it and paid no notice. But the others know him. Simeon especially.

‘Hierocles was a great hater of the Christians,’ he says, though I can see he’s thinking much more.

‘Do you know where it came from?’

‘From the library,’ says the librarian. ‘We have dozens of them.’

And as soon as I look, I see. Midway up each shelf, about shoulder height, stone heads sit on wooden plinths guarding the manuscripts. Except on the shelf where blood has spattered the books. There, the plinth is empty.

The story unravels like a scroll.

Item: Alexander was standing by the shelf, looking for a document.

Item: The killer arrived. Did Alexander suspect what he was going to do? Probably not – he would have made a noise, and even with the building works next door someone would have heard it. Perhaps they even talked for a few moments.

Item: The killer snatched the bust off the shelf and killed Alexander by smashing in his forehead.

And as my mind reads all this, the final line emerges.

Item: He dragged the corpse to the table and propped it up, so that anyone who glimpsed it would think the man was sleeping. Then he escaped.

Or went to announce that he’d found the body. I look back at Simeon. He can tell what I’m thinking. His face is hard and blank, the anger drawn inside. He’s waiting for me to accuse him.

Casually, I turn back to the librarian.

‘How many men were here this afternoon?’

‘Perhaps twenty.’

‘Can you give me their names?’