XLV
THREE MILES FROM the centre of Rome, Via Casilina was an unlovely artery: four lanes of traffic split down the middle by a light rail line. Behind the San Marcellino metro station, a pink plastered church stood dedicated to the early Christian martyrs Saint Peter and Saint Marcellinus. Next door was a brick school that looked like a warehouse, and in between ran a concrete wall with two gates, one large and one small. The large gate opened on to an asphalt car park that doubled as a playground for the school; the small one, which was barely high enough for an adult, led on to a narrow passage between two walls. A metal gate barred the way.
Mark studied it through a pair of binoculars. They were parked in the forecourt of the petrol station across the road – Mark and Abby, Barry and Connie. Abby was getting sick of the sight of them.
‘It doesn’t look like much,’ Barry said. About fifty metres back from the road, the broken curve of a brick rotunda poked above the line of the wall. It had no roof, and more than half its wall was missing. It was a poor cousin to the grandeur of the Fatih Mosque, or even Diocletian’s mausoleum in Split.
‘It belongs to the Vatican,’ said Connie from the back seat. ‘I suppose they can’t look after everything.’
Mark swore. ‘First it was a mosque, now it’s the Pope. Can’t we go somewhere that doesn’t belong to a touchy religion that’s famous for starting holy wars?’
‘Why don’t you bring in the police?’ Abby asked.
‘And piss off another country?’ Mark shook his head. ‘Our ambassador in Ankara is currently grovelling in front of Turkish intelligence explaining why we mobilised five hundred policemen, almost invaded one of their holiest mosques, then skipped town without so much as a thank you. From now on, we act on the basis of credible intelligence.’
‘I’m sure that’ll make a pleasant change for you.’
A white Fiat pulled in to the petrol station and stopped alongside them. Mark rolled down his window and gestured the driver to do likewise. Barry cradled a black semi-automatic pistol on his lap.
‘Dr Lusetti?’ Mark enquired.
The Fiat driver nodded. They all got out and shook hands, like travelling salesmen carpooling to a conference. Dr Mario Lusetti from the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology was a middle-aged man with a severe buzz cut and rimless spectacles. He wore jeans, a white shirt and a black blazer. He didn’t look as if he smiled very often; just then, he looked particularly unhappy.
‘You want to see the catacombs?’
‘We think one of Europe’s most wanted men – a dangerous criminal – will try to break in to steal a priceless artefact,’ Mark said. He spoke loudly, an Englishman abroad; it made him sound ridiculously melodramatic.
Lusetti pursed his lips and blew out a puff of air. ‘The catacomb has a footprint of thirty thousand square metres. There are four and a half kilometres of passages and galleries spread over three levels, with twenty or twenty-five thousand burials inside. Even maybe there are more places that nobody has ever excavated. And, by the way, the catacombs have been discovered since the sixteenth century: every grave robber and thief in Rome has been down there. If your criminals are looking for something, probably they are four hundred years too late. If not, for sure it will take them another four hundred years to find it.’
‘I don’t care what they find. As long as we find them.’
Connie stayed in the car to watch. Lusetti led the others across the road and unlocked the little gate, then shepherded them down the narrow alley. At the end, a second gate led them through a steel fence topped with razor wire, into the circular enclosure that surrounded the old rotunda. Close to, Abby could see how vast it must have been: so big, in fact, that a two-storey house had been built inside the ruin. There were a few signs of restoration work – a couple of concrete buttresses, some broken-ended walls that had been squared off – but no evidence of recent activity.
‘You know the story here?’ Lusetti asked. ‘It was the tomb of Saint Helena. The Emperor Constantine decided he did not want to be buried in Rome, so he gave it to his mother instead. Before, it had been the cemetery of the Imperial Cavalry Guard – but they fought against Constantine at the battle of Milvian Bridge. He disbanded the legion and pissed on their bones.’
He unlocked the door to the house and led them in to a marble-floored hall. Shutters shaded the rooms, and Abby could taste dust and damp in the air.
‘This whole area had been an imperial estate called Ad Duas Lauros for centuries. After the Dowager Empress Helena was buried here, Constantine gave it to the papacy. We have it still.’
Lusetti took hard hats, head torches and fluorescent workmen’s vests off wooden pegs and handed them round. Barry stared at the reflective stripes on the vests and frowned.
‘Do we want to be highly visible if we’re chasing a dangerous criminal?’
‘In the catacomb is very dark. If we lose you, maybe we never see you again.’
They pulled on the protective clothing. Lusetti opened a side door and flicked a light switch. The naked bulb illuminated a stone staircase going down.
‘Is that it?’ Mark asked. It looked like nothing, the sort of entrance any Victorian house might have going down to its cellar.
‘This is the way down.’
‘Is there any other way in?’
‘Officially, no.’
‘Unofficially?’
