Secrets of the Dead

Her hand ran over a suit jacket and stopped. Under the pin-striped cloth she felt something stiff and solid. She slipped her hand inside the pocket, and came out holding a slim red leather diary. She had to smile. Michael’s diaries had been a standing joke. He’d owned at least three that she’d known about, possibly more, different shapes and sizes that lived independent existences, turning up in pockets or on desks or shelves more or less at random. Whenever Michael had to make a date, he wrote it in whichever diary came to hand. The one time Abby pointed out how inefficient this was, he’d looked mock-wounded. I’m half-Greek and half-Irish, he’d said. Timekeeping’s not in the genes. Amazingly, she’d never known him miss an appointment.

She opened the diary and turned through the pages, the last weeks of Michael’s life. He hadn’t used it much – most of the jottings were routine meetings, minor errands. But two entries stood out. One, three weeks before he died: Levin, OMPF, underscored three times. The other, the following week, Jessop, 91.

The screech of the telephone cut through the silence. Abby almost dropped the diary. The phone rang on, penetrating every corner of the flat; Abby didn’t move. She felt like a burglar, caught in the act. It’s your home, she scolded herself.

She didn’t pick up. The phone kept ringing, until she was almost used to it. Then it stopped. Down on the street outside, she heard a car draw up. She ran to the window and looked down. A silver Opel 4 x 4 with EU markings had pulled up on the kerb across the road. A door opened, and she ducked back in case anyone saw her through the window. How did they know she was there? Did Annukka call them?

I’m an EU employee, standing in my own flat on a Saturday afternoon. But it wasn’t really like that. She ran to the kitchen and took the spare key from the biscuit jar, just in case she needed to come back. Then she slipped into the bathroom, clambered down off the roof as quickly as the pain in her side would allow, and disappeared down the footpath that ran between the apartment buildings and chain-link fences. She didn’t look back.

XVIII

Constantinople – April 337

I SIT IN the stern of the boat. The sun’s setting over Constantinople; the palace is in shadow, while on the opposite shore the roofs of Chrysopolis burn gold. I’m in a black mood. I’m furious that I let Severus provoke me, but that’s passing. It’s not the first time I’ve lost my temper. There’s something deeper, something malignant inside me that I feel but can’t touch.

I force myself to think about the substance of our discussion. If Constantine’s son Claudius has sent his chief of staff from Trier to Constantinople, he must be worried for his father. More accurately: worried for his inheritance. As Constantine himself proved thirty years ago in York, a son’s place is with his dying father. When the crown slips, he wants to be there to catch it.

It’s a shock to think that Constantine might be dying. He seemed well enough when I saw him. But I’m ignorant. Constantine has physicians and doctors who examine every drop of bile or blood; he also has the slaves who attend him. If there’s blood in his stool, or strange marks on his skin, or if he’s up half the night coughing out his guts, someone will know. And the news will spread to those who are willing to pay for it.

So why was Severus interested in Alexander? I don’t believe he had Constantine’s secret will. If it was that important, Constantine would be turning the city upside down, not asking me to make discreet enquiries.

A dense web surrounds Alexander. I try to trace its spirals in my thoughts. Symacchus, unreconstructed adept of the old religion, and Eusebius, high priest of the new. Asterius the Sophist, peering into cathedrals he’s forbidden from entering. Simeon the Deacon. Now Severus and Ursus.

Symacchus the persecutor who could have killed Alexander thirty years ago.

Asterius, who perjured his faith, while Alexander kept his.

Eusebius, the churchman whose promotion Alexander blocked.

Simeon, always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Severus the Crow, waiting for death and the future.

And Alexander, the fly in the centre of the web, jerking and twitching as the spiders stalk their threads.

A boat rowing across the Bosphorus is a good place to consider these things. The slaves strain, the oars swing; the boat seems to move, but the coast never gets any nearer.

I sleep badly, then wake late. I sit in my empty house and pick at Alexander’s manuscripts that Simeon gave me. One’s called The Search for Truth. I wonder if Simeon meant it ironically.

You cannot marry truth with violence, nor justice with cruelty.

Religion is to be defended not by killing but by dying; not by cruelty but by patient endurance; not by sin but by good faith.

Humanity must be defended if we want to be worth the name of human beings.

I put down the book and roll it up. I won’t find the truth I’m seeking there. It makes him sound like a reasonable man – likeable, even. Nothing to suggest why someone would want to kill him.

Religion is to be defended not by killing but by dying. Who was he defending his religion from? An old enemy like Symmachus? Someone from within his own church? Or a man like Severus, for whom religion and politics are two faces of the same coin?

Alexander can’t speak from beyond the grave, I realise. He isn’t in it yet. He’ll still be lying out for the mourners to pay their respects.

A morbid curiosity overcomes me. I never knew him in life. Perhaps seeing him in death will give me knowledge.

In Rome, denied recognition, the Christians squeezed their churches into converted shops, warehouses, even private homes. When Constantine built his new city, he endowed it with plenty of churches – but the Christian congregation has grown so fast they’ve overflowed and resorted to the old expedients. The Church of Saint John fills the ground floor of a tenement block near the city walls that used to be a bathhouse. Planks cover the holes where