Secrets of the Dead

mean anything. The man – I still can’t bring myself to call him Crispus – is near the front; all I can see is his back. His hair is curly, almost touching his collar – longer than he wore it eleven years ago, but still jet black. Is there a hunch to his left shoulder, a stiffness when he moves? Does he remember what I said to him on that beach? If only I could have five minutes alone with him, I could be sure one way or the other.

The scaffolding’s still standing at the rear of the mausoleum, screened from the crowds who have gathered on the ground outside. I can hear their quiet roar as we climb the ladders, criss-crossing back and forth up the platforms. No one tries to stop us.

Just below the copper dome, there’s a walkway around the outside of the rotunda. A stone balustrade guards it, with latticed metalwork in between the pillars. The outside is painted gold, though from behind all you see is iron.

We crouch beneath the balustrade and wait. Peering through the lattice, I can see the audience settling. The senators and generals have taken their seats on the banked stands facing the pyre; the legions have drawn up in scarlet squares around them, with the great mass of people behind straining for a view.

How many of them will be alive at sunset if Porfyrius has his way? He says he wants to unite the empire – but even Constantine needed twenty years of fighting to achieve it. Not everyone will accept Porfyrius’s miraculous proposition on faith.

I try to get a glimpse of Crispus, but the walkway’s narrow and jammed with Porfyrius’s men. Crispus is out of sight, further around the curve of the building.

Down in the city below, the funeral bier is still making its slow progress up the hill. I turn to Porfyrius, crouched beside me.

‘Did Alexander discover him? Your secret? Is that why you killed him in the library?’

Porfyrius wipes sweat from his eyes. ‘He discovered it in the worst way possible. Crispus had come to meet me in the library that day – there were papers he needed to see. Alexander saw him and recognised him. Crispus panicked; he grabbed the first thing that came to hand and lashed out. He’s strong. One blow was all it took.’

‘He bludgeoned his old tutor to death?’ I shake my head. ‘The Crispus I knew would never have done that.’

‘Death changes a man. And these are desperate times.’

Porfyrius turns away and studies the landscape below. The tail end of the procession has finally made it into the mausoleum compound. The crowds slow its path as it winds its way to the pyre – hundreds of arms reach across the barriers just to touch the hem of the shroud. The priests who accompanied the bier from the palace have suddenly melted away, even Eusebius. None of them wants to witness this ancient rite, the way Romans have buried their rulers since the time of the kings. Afterwards, when the ashes are cold and the army dispersed, they’ll perform their own Christian ritual in the sanitised presence of the holy apostles. Though by then, things might be very different.

The bier reaches the pyre. Six guards lift the body off and carry it up a flight of stairs to the first floor of the wooden tower. From here, I can’t tell if it’s the wax effigy or the real man – not that it matters. A solitary figure in a golden robe mounts the dais in front of it. He’s got his back to me: I can only see the top of his head, sparkling from the pearls in his crown. I guess it’s Constantius.

Shouts ring out – not from below, but from up on the rooftop behind us. A hidden door’s opened; palace guards are pouring out of it on to the walkway. Swords clash as Porfyrius’s men wake up to the danger and try to beat them back.

The last battle for Constantine begins.

Rome – Present Day

Dragovic stared into the open coffin. The beam from his head torch shone down like a lance. Standing in the back corner of the chamber, Abby couldn’t see his face, but she saw the change in his body. He seemed to sag; he gripped the rim and swung his head from side to side as if drunk.

He turned back. All the venom had drained from his face.

‘It’s empty.’

His men peered in. Michael stepped forward and joined them. He reached in his hand, shoulder deep, and felt around. It came out closed in a fist, but when he opened it, there was nothing there but dust. It trickled through his fingers.

‘All for nothing,’ he murmured. ‘No labarum. Not even a body.’

Dragovic rubbed his hand along the top edge of the sarcophagus. By his light, Abby saw chips and gouges chewed out of the lip.

‘Someone has been here before.’ He swung back towards Michael. Suddenly, the silver pistol was in his hand and aimed at Michael’s heart. ‘Maybe you thought you could cheat Zoltan Dragovic?’

Michael stepped back against the wall. Behind him, a forlorn Jonah disappeared into the mouth of a giant blue whale.

‘For Christ’s sake, it was bricked up hundreds of years ago.’

‘It’s true,’ Abby said desperately. ‘Dr Lusetti – the archaeologist who was with us – he said those bricks were Roman. If grave robbers were here, they were Roman grave robbers.’

Michael held out his arms in innocence. Dragovic looked at his gun. From the cave floor, an electric buzz sounded from one of the backpacks that had been laid beside the sarcophagus.

The man beside it lifted the flap of the pack and pulled out a small handset, linked by a wire to an unseen antenna in the backpack. He read something off the display and swore.

‘That was Darko,’ he said in Serbian. ‘He says carabinieri have entered the catacomb.’

Dragovic nodded. Far from worrying him, the threat seemed to restore his energy.

‘Rig the explosives,’ he ordered.