Secrets of the Dead

‘The porter on the door will have seen them.’

‘Have him make a list.’

‘Aurelius Symmachus was here.’

Simeon blurts it out so fast I hardly catch the name. Simeon’s lost his battle with his anger: his eyes are fixed on me in defiance. Perhaps he thinks it’s the only chance he’ll get to speak.

‘Aurelius Symmachus is one of the most eminent men in the city,’ I point out. Aurelius Symmachus is old Rome, patrician to the core, still a man to be reckoned with, though he’s out of date in this city of new buildings and new men. Not that I’m one to talk.

‘He was here,’ Simeon insists. ‘I saw him talking to Bishop Alexander earlier this afternoon. He left just before I found the body.’

I check the librarian for confirmation. He’s fiddling with the stylus he wears on a chain around his wrist and won’t meet my eye.

Simeon points to the bust, still in my hand. ‘Hierocles was a philosopher known for his hatred of Christians. So is Symmachus.’

An old Roman with the old gods – it doesn’t surprise me. But it doesn’t make him a murderer.

‘Perhaps he wanted to send a message,’ Simeon persists.

Perhaps he did. I remember what Constantine said: Others will say the murder of Alexander was an attack on all Christians by those who hate them.

‘I’ll look into it.’ I turn to go, but there’s still something else Simeon wants to say.

‘When we came here this morning, Alexander had a document case. A leather box with brass bindings. He wouldn’t let me see it – wouldn’t even let me carry it.’

‘And?’

‘It’s missing.’

V

London – Present Day

YOU COULD ALWAYS tell England from the air. Other countries looked messy: fields and houses littered across the landscape without logic, isolated squares of cultivation in ragged, contested lands. In England, all the lines joined up. She watched the tessellated fields and estates drag by under the wing as they descended to Gatwick. Everything was as grey and damp as a dungeon.

They’d flown her back as soon as they dared. She sat on the flight wearing a shapeless smock and a skirt they must have found in a maternity shop. Underneath, she was trussed up like a corpse. At least she could walk, more or less. The airport had a wheelchair waiting for her, but she waved it away. Every step sent bolts of pain through her shoulder; her lungs ached as if she’d run a marathon, but she forced herself to walk to the exit unaided.

Lost in the effort, she didn’t see the sign with her name on it. It was only when she felt a tug on her sleeve that she looked up from the floor. A young man in a suit and an open-necked shirt was waiting for her, a mobile phone in one hand and a printed sign saying CORMAC in the other.

‘Mark,’ he introduced himself with an apologetic grin. ‘The office sent me to pick you up. Said it was the least they could do.’

‘Thanks.’ She didn’t mean it. Everything about him screamed youth: the golden hair, tousled without affectation; the soft fat around his cheeks; the energetic confidence, newly minted from Cambridge or the LSE or wherever the civil service got them these days. She hadn’t felt this old since her divorce.

‘Have you got a suitcase?’

She hefted the black overnight bag she’d somehow managed to carry from the plane. ‘Just this. I didn’t pack for a long trip.’

‘Right.’ And then, as if she’d said something else. ‘Golly.’

Did I step through a time warp? Do people really say ‘golly’ any more?

It was a stupid thought, but it didn’t take much these days. Just the least hint of uncertainty. She began to tremble: the panic swelled inside her. She saw Mark watching, his blue eyes concerned and uncomprehending. He put a hand on her arm.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Dizzy.’ She found a row of plastic seats and sat down. ‘Just the flight.’

‘I’ll fetch the car.’

As soon as his back was turned, she popped the cap on the yellow beaker they’d given her at the hospital and shook out two pills. The airline had confiscated her water bottle: she swallowed them dry and hurt her throat.

Get a grip, she told herself. Don’t let them start to pity you.

Mark reappeared. She hadn’t realised how long he’d been gone. Perhaps the pills were doing something.

‘Where to?’

* * *

Abby owned a flat in Clapham, on the north side of the common. When the divorce proceedings began, the lawyers had said it would have to go, but Abby had doubled down on the mortgage to buy out Hector’s share. It was a silly thing to do – she probably hadn’t spent more than three months there in the last two years. It held some