The best that could be said was that it had a view – across the river, through the rain, where the high-rise towers of Novi Belgrad made dappled pillars of light. It looked like another world. Michael locked the door and put a chair against it; Abby threw herself down on the bed and burrowed her head into the pillow.
Michael sat down on the bed beside her. He moved to stroke her shoulder, then thought better of it.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘What can we do?’
‘I don’t trust Giacomo.’
‘I don’t trust him either. But – he’s the best we’ve got.’ He rolled on to his back and lit a cigarette. ‘This world we’re in, we have to deal with people like him. You’re not in the Hague any more.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ She lifted herself on her elbows so he could see her anger. ‘I’ve dealt with some of the worst murderers on the planet – men who make Giacomo and even Dragovic look like wallflowers.’
‘I know –’
‘You
‘Because you’ve got guts.’
‘Because we have rules and institutions and laws to deal with these people. Now we’re no better than they are.’
Michael jerked his hand out the window. ‘Look where we are –
‘Milosevic ended up in a jail cell in the Hague.’
‘After he’d killed 140,000 people. And after NATO finally grew some balls and bombed him to hell. And what happened back in that valley in Kosovo? The Americans had Dragovic right in their sights, and all they could do was watch him drive over the border, because that’s what the rules say. Is that good enough?’
‘It has to be,’ Abby insisted. ‘Remember what you said about barbarians? About patrolling the frontiers of civilisation so that good people can sleep safely? Following the rules is what lets us draw the line.’
Michael reached out to touch her, but she jerked away. Tears threatened; she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.
Michael swung himself off the bed. He stared into the mirror, as if looking for someone.
‘So what are we going to do?’ she asked again. Her voice sounded dead.
‘Knowledge lies within you,’ Michael murmured. ‘The only clue we’ve got is the poem. Dragovic thinks so, too – otherwise he wouldn’t have stolen the copy from the Forum Museum.’
Abby thought about it. It didn’t make her wounds go away, but at least it took her mind off the pain.
‘The version on the gravestone in Rome only had two lines. The one Gruber deciphered from the scroll had four.’
She took out the paper Gruber had given her, wrinkled and creased from too long in a damp pocket. Michael studied it. ‘Still not much to go on.’
Behind the flimsy curtains, rain drummed on the windows. Abby thought back to another wet day in another city on the fringe of the old Roman empire.
‘What if there’s more?’ she said. ‘Gruber hadn’t finished analysing the scroll – he’d barely begun. There might be more of the poem.’
A light went on in Michael’s eyes. He spun around.
‘Wait here.’
He pulled on his coat and headed to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To make a phone call.’ He wagged his finger at her. ‘Don’t open the door to strangers.’
She was alone for twelve minutes, and each one felt like a year. The room was heated by a cast-iron radiator that banged and popped as if it were haunted. Every noise it made shocked her like a gunshot. She found herself staring at the door, her heart racing, breath held in anticipation. She waited for a knock, for the handle to turn. When Michael came back, she almost fainted in relief.
His face was triumphant.
‘Dr Gruber will be flying to Belgrade first thing tomorrow. He’ll bring us his copy of the scroll, and the words he’s managed to decipher so far.’
‘Did he say there was more? Of the poem?’
‘He hinted.’
‘Couldn’t he just have read it over the phone?’
Michael gave a wolfish grin. ‘He could. But then he wouldn’t have been sure to collect the hundred thousand euros he thinks are coming his way.’
It felt like the longest night of Abby’s life. She lay under the covers, too frightened even to undress. The whole
