Secrets of the Dead

‘I never dreamed they’d think Sloba was me. You were in a coma and surrounded by police: I called Jenny because she was the only person I could trust. She said the local police wanted her to identify a body. I told her to do it. So much easier to avoid awkward questions if everyone thinks you’re dead.’

‘Easier?’ The hurt and shock and betrayal that had been smouldering inside her suddenly erupted in a flash of anger. ‘Easier to leave me thinking you were dead? Easier to have me stumbling around Europe wondering why people kept trying to kill me? Is that what you call easy?’

Michael put his head in his hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I didn’t ask for any of this.’

‘I know. I owe you an apology – an explanation – so much.’ He lifted his head, searching for forgiveness. ‘Dragovic was after you. He knew something wasn’t right. The fact that Sloba’s body was missing, for starters. He might have heard rumours that I’d been seen: not much happens in this part of the world that he doesn’t hear about. And he guessed there was something I’d been holding back from him.’

He waited for her to respond. She knew she shouldn’t – she wasn’t nearly ready to give up her anger yet – but somehow she found herself saying: ‘The scroll?’

Michael’s eyes lit up. ‘You found it?’

‘I went to Trier. I saw Doctor Gruber.’

‘Did he decode it?’

‘Only a few words.’ She tried to remember, then realised with a start she didn’t have to. She patted her jeans pocket. The piece of paper Gruber had given her made a wad against her thigh, softened where rain had seeped into it.

She opened the paper, peeling apart the damp folds, and read the poem. To reach the living, navigate the dead. The words resonated strangely as she said them. She’d been navigating a world where Michael was dead; now here he was, living and breathing.

‘Do you know what it means?’

‘No idea,’ Michael said. ‘But I couldn’t bear the idea of something like that being lost for ever because I’d given it to Dragovic. And it was worth holding something back for a second pass. I found Doctor Gruber online and turned up on his doorstep. Even if I had to give away the scroll in the end, I wanted to make sure the information on it would survive. Whatever was in that tomb, it means something to Dragovic. He thinks there’s more to it.’

She passed him the plate and took another sip of the clear brandy. It burned her tongue, but at least it felt real.

‘So what do you want to do?’

‘I think Dragovic can be had. I don’t know what he wants, but he’s turned half of Europe upside down looking for it. He’s not thinking straight.’

That makes two of you, Abby thought.

‘He’s breaking his own rules on getting involved: he’s left himself vulnerable. If we can get to it – whatever it is – before him …’

‘He’ll crush you.’

‘Not if we’re careful.’

We. It was the second time he’d said it. It sounded so natural, almost inevitable.

‘You,’ she said firmly. ‘You already died once – and nearly killed me, too. If you want to go off on some revenge fantasy tilting at Dragovic, you’re on your own.’

Michael nodded. ‘Of course – I presumed – sorry. Where are you going to go?’

Such a mild question, but it stripped away the layers of shock and anger to leave nothing but raw terror. Where am I going to go? To a cold flat in Clapham that stank of a failed marriage? To a desk job in the Foreign Office – if they even let her back in the building after everything she’d been involved in?

She was lost. Michael read it in her face. ‘You can’t stay in the Balkans. Dragovic has eyes on every street corner between Vienna and Istanbul. He’ll eat you alive.’

‘Am I supposed to live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder?’

‘Who’s going to protect you? You won’t get a NATO helicopter flying in every time you’re in trouble. The EU? The British government?’

The vision of Jessop’s body lying in the mud was the only answer she could come up with.

‘Why did you spend ten years of your life tramping around deserts and jungles? So you could nail people like Dragovic, right?’

Abby looked at her hands. ‘I gave up on saving the world.’

‘You can’t.’ Michael leaned forward, a shadow in the gloom. ‘That Roman guy in the tomb – you know what he was doing in this God-fucking-forsaken place? Patrolling the frontiers of civilisation to keep the barbarians out. That’s what we have to do, Abby. Because if you don’t stamp on the barbarians, they’re all over you before you know it. Look at Yugoslavia or Rwanda or Germany in the thirties. One moment you’re in a nice, middle-class country washing your car on Sunday afternoon. The next, you’re hacking up your neighbour with a machete or pumping him full of Zyklon B.’

‘What are you saying? That this mess you’re in is somehow like fighting the Nazis?’

‘I’m saying please. Help me do this. For my sake, and Irina, and all the good people who’ve suffered because a shit like Dragovic thinks no one will stop him. And do it for yourself. You’re not going to escape until he’s put away.’