Secrets of the Dead

‘No?’

Another glance. The shadow was still there. He must have closed the gap – she could see a dim slice of his face between the brim of the hat and the coat collar, though it was too rushed and wet to make out any detail.

‘Are you there? Is this a good time that you are able to talk?’

‘Yes. It’s fine. I –’

She swung around another corner and came face to face, unexpectedly, with the Minster. Rain had driven away the busker and the tourists; she thought she glimpsed the Roman legionary sheltering in a doorway, but he was so faint he might have been a ghost. Behind her, quick footsteps slapped on the cobbles.

‘Where are you, Frau Cormac?’

‘England.’

‘Is it possible you come to visit us?’

‘In Germany?’

‘The Landesmuseum in Trier. I think face to face it will be easier to explain some things.’

She was running now, praying the church was still open. Weren’t they supposed to be places of refuge? Under the bandages, her chest throbbed as if it would tear open. ‘Please can’t you tell me –?’

‘In person is better.’

‘Anything at all –’

‘Herr Lascaris left instructions. Total confidentiality. I cannot –’

The shadow had melted back into the rain, but she knew he had to be there. She ran up the steps and pushed through the heavy door into the Minster. ‘I’ll come. Thank you. Goodbye.’

And here at last there were people. Ushers in red cloaks and tourists in wet anoraks, heads tipped back to stare at the ceiling bosses. In the distance she could hear the pure high line of choristers singing a psalm. She shut off her phone and stood still, letting the immensity of the building embrace her.

One of the ushers approached. ‘Are you here for the service? Evensong’s just started.’

She looked at him dumbly and nodded. He led her into the quire, the wood-panelled area that was a virtual church within a church, and seated her on the end of a row of high-backed seats. More people, more warmth. Candles glowed on the pews, while hidden spotlights created soft pools of light and shadow in the high hollows of the church.

The congregation stood as the choir began to sing the Nunc Dimittis. Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace. Abby stood and closed her eyes. Tears and rain ran down her face; she wondered if the people around her could tell. She didn’t care. In her mind she was in a small whitewashed church in Ealing, and a serious man was standing in the pulpit in his long white robe and golden stole. Her father.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall have peace. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall have mercy.

‘What would you have made of me now?’ she whispered.

The song had finished. She heard a fluttering like birds around her as the congregation sat back down in the pews. She opened her eyes. She looked back to the door of the quire, a great wooden gateway underneath the stockade of organ pipes, to see if the shadow-man had followed her here.

The gates were shut and no one could come in. Beyond it, all was darkness.

VIII

Constantinople – April 337

I’M WEARY. I’VE been tramping around town for hours, breathing in the heat and the dust and finding that no one knows anything about the murder at the library. There was a time when I could walk forty miles in a day, but those days are a memory. I find a fountain and splash water over my face. I ease myself down on the wall and sit. The children playing in the street don’t see me; their mothers, hurrying to finish their errands before nightfall, ignore me. They don’t know who I was.

There’s one final place I need to go today. It isn’t far, but I almost miss the turn. I’m looking out for a statue on the corner, a nice bronze of a sea god riding in a chariot. It’s only when I’ve gone fifty paces past it that I realise I’ve gone too far. I retrace my steps – and almost overshoot again. The statue’s gone.

Constantinople’s like that: a city of moving statues. They watch you from their plinths and pedestals, tucked in niches or on the tops of buildings. They become your companions, friends and guides. Then you wake up one morning and discover they’ve disappeared. Only the plinths remain, the inscriptions chiselled blank, waiting for their next occupants to move in. Of course, nobody mentions it.

Ten years ago there were a lot of empty plinths. Most of them are reoccupied now, but I still miss the old, familiar faces.

Alexander lived in a humble block of apartments above a tavern. A staircase to the left of the front door leads to the upper floors. I climb it and come to a landing.

It isn’t hard to guess which is Alexander’s door: it’s the one with the painted chi-rho monogram and the heavy lock. The lock didn’t work. The door’s wide open, as if blown in by a breeze. But it’s a still day, and it would have to have been a storm worthy of Jupiter to have splintered the jamb and ripped off the lock like that. I can hear movements inside.

A voice inside me says I shouldn’t be here. I don’t have much life left, but I don’t want to lose it yet. Alexander’s nothing to me except a ticket out of the city. I can come back in the morning and no one will know.