by Simon Toyne
‘Hey, Arkadian,’ he called over his shoulder, still transfixed by the livid body on the slab. ‘You said you wanted a clue. How does this grab you?’
Chapter 26
Athanasius stopped at the door, aware that he did not possess the right to enter the restricted room, and more than slightly fearful of what might happen if he did.
He looked inside.
The Abbot stood imposingly in the confined space, the red light seeming to radiate from him as if he were a demon glowing in the darkness. His back was to the door, so he could not see Athanasius. His eyes were fixed on a grid of fifteen apertures carved into the far wall, each containing a receptacle made from the same material as aircraft black box data recorders. Athanasius recalled Father Malachi telling him how they were strong enough to protect their precious contents even if the whole mountain fell upon them; that did little to comfort him now.
He glanced down at the invisible line on the floor and contemplated stepping boldly into the room, but the phrase ‘See no evil, hear no evil’ rose unbidden into his thoughts and he remained where he stood until the Abbot, either sensing his presence or wondering at the lack of it, turned and looked straight at him. Athanasius noted with relief that his master’s face, despite its unsettling crimson pall, did not display the glower of a man on the warpath but the thoughtfulness of one with a problem to solve.
‘Come in.’ The Abbot removed one of the boxes from its recess and carried it to the lectern in the centre of the room. Sensing Athanasius’s continued reluctance to step inside, he said, ‘I spoke to Malachi on my way through. You may enter the vault – for an hour at least.’
As Athanasius obeyed, a second red glow accompanied him across the vault, confirming that – for the time being – his presence was legitimate.
The lectern stood in the centre of the room, facing the entrance but with the reading surface angled away from it. Anyone standing at it would be warned of an approach by the tell-tale sign of the advancing light, and any book placed there could not be seen from outside.
‘I summoned you here,’ the Abbot said, ‘because I wish to show you something.’
He unlatched the box and gently opened it.
‘Do you have any idea what this might be?’
Athanasius leaned forward, his aura joining the Abbot’s to illuminate a book, bound with a single panel of slate with a bold symbol etched on to its surface – the symbol of the Tau.
His breath caught in his throat. He knew at once what it was, as much from descriptions he had read as the circumstances in which he was now discovering it.
‘A Heretic Bible,’ Athanasius said.
‘No,’ the Abbot corrected. ‘Not a Heretic Bible. The Heretic Bible. This is the last remaining copy.’
Athanasius gazed down upon the slate cover. ‘I thought they had all been destroyed.’
‘That is what we wish people to believe. What better way to prevent them from searching for something than to persuade them that it does not exist?’
Athanasius considered the wisdom of this. He had barely spared a thought for the legendary book in years, because he thought it was exactly that – a legend. Yet here it was, close enough to touch.
‘That book,’ the Abbot said through clenched teeth, ‘contains thirteen pages of outrageous, poisonous and twisted lies; lies which dare to contradict and pervert the very word of God as recorded and set down in our own true Bible.’
Athanasius stared down at the innocuous-looking cover. ‘Then why spare this copy?’ he asked. ‘If it’s so dangerous, why keep even one?’
‘Because,’ the Abbot replied, jabbing his finger at the box, ‘you can destroy books, but their contents have a way of surviving; and in order for us to confound and defeat our enemies it helps if we first know their minds. Let me show you something.’
He placed a finger on the edge of the cover and opened it. The pages inside were also made of slate, held by three leather thongs. As the Abbot turned them, Athanasius felt an overwhelming temptation to read what was scratched on their surfaces. Unfortunately the rate at which the Abbot was proceeding, coupled with the nebulizing quality of the red light, made it virtually impossible. He could see that each page contained two columns of dense script, but it was several moments before he realized they were written in Malan, the language of the first heretics. With his brain now attuned he managed to pick up just two fragments as the pages flipped over. Two fragments, two phrases – both of which added to his already considerable state of shock.
‘There,’ the Abbot announced as he reached the final page. ‘This is part of what equates to their version of Genesis. You are familiar with their bastard tongue, I believe.’
Athanasius hesitated, his mind still trembling with the forbidden words he had just read.
‘Yes,’ he managed to say without his voice betraying him. ‘I have . . . studied it.’
‘Then read,’ the Abbot said.
Unlike the previous pages, the final tablet of slate contained only eight lines of text. They were arranged as a Calligram forming the sign of the Tau – the same textual symbol Kathryn Mann had gazed upon two hours previously. This one, however, was complete.
The one true cross will appear on earth
All will see it in a single moment – all will wonder
The cross will fall
The cross will rise
To unlock the Sacrament
And bring forth a new age
Through its merciful death
Athanasius looked up at the Abbot, his mind racing.
‘This is why I brought you here,’ the Abbot said. ‘I wanted you to see with your own eyes how Brother Samuel’s death may be interpreted by our enemies.’
Athanasius studied the prophecy again. The first three lines read like a description of the extraordinary events of the morning; it was the last four that made the blood drain from his cheeks. What they suggested was something incredible, unbelievable, momentous.
‘This is why we kept the book,’ the Abbot said solemnly. ‘Knowledge is power; and knowing what our enemies believe gives us the advantage. I want you to keep a close and watchful eye on Brother Samuel’s body. For if these twisted words contain any truth, and he is the cross mentioned here, then he may yet rise up – and be seen by our enemies as a weapon to use against us.’
Chapter 27
Reis and Arkadian stared down at the body. Criss-crossing the skin was a complex and elaborate network of livid white scars; some old, some more recent – all deliberate. In the macabre setting of the autopsy room they gave the impression that the monk was some kind of gothic monster, stitched together from the component parts of a number of men.
Reis restarted the recording.
‘The subject shows significant and uniform scarring over much of his body, the result of cuts made repeatedly by a sharp, clinical instrument such as a scalpel or a razor, possibly during some kind of ritual.’
He began the grisly inventory.
‘Starting at the head . . . An old, healed scar entirely circumscribing the neck where it connects with the torso. Similar scars circumscribe both arms at the shoulder and both legs at the groin. The one at the top of the upper left arm has been recently reopened, but already shows signs of healing. This incision is also straight-edged and extremely neat, surgically precise even, from a highly sharpened blade.
‘Also on the left arm at the junction of the upper bicep and tricep is a T-shaped keloid scar, thicker than the others, caused by repeated heat trauma.’ He glanced across at Arkadian. ‘Looks like this boy’s been on the receiving end of a cattle brand.’
Arkadian stared at the raised ‘T’ on the monk’s upper arm, all thought of his other cases now forgotten. He picked up Reis’s camera. Its LCD screen displayed a miniature version of the monk lying on the autopsy table. With a press of a button it was transmitted wirelessly to the case file.
‘There’s another scar running along the top of the ribcage, and one bisecting it, down t
hrough the sternum to the navel.’ Reis paused. ‘In shape and size it resembles the Y-cut we make to remove major organs during a post-mortem.
‘Radiating from the areola of the left nipple are four straight lines arranged at right angles to form the shape of a cross. Also not recent, each is approximately . . .’ Reis produced his tape again ‘ . . . twenty centimetres long.’ He took a closer look. ‘There’s another cross on the right side of the torso, level with the base of the ribcage; different from the rest; roughly thirteen centimetres laterally, like a Christian cross lying on its side; evidence of stretch marks on the skin surrounding it; must have happened a long time ago. It also hasn’t been subjected to ritualistic re-opening, so maybe it isn’t as significant as the others.’
Arkadian took another snap then examined the scar close up. It did look exactly like a fallen cross. He pulled back, searching for meaning in the pattern of incisions. ‘Have you seen anything like this before?’
Reis shook his head. ‘My guess is some kind of initiation thing. But most of these scars aren’t fresh, so I don’t know how relevant they are to his jumping.’
‘He didn’t just jump,’ Arkadian said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘With most suicides, death is the principal objective. But not with this guy; his death was somehow . . . secondary. I think his primary motive lay elsewhere.’
Reis’s eyebrows disappeared beneath his hair. ‘If you throw yourself off the top of the Citadel, death has got to be fairly high on your agenda.’
‘But why climb all the way to the top? A fall from almost any height would have been enough.’
‘Maybe he was scared of winding up crippled. Lots of halfhearted suicide bids end up in the hospital rather than in here.’
‘Even so, he didn’t need to struggle to the very top. He also didn’t need to wait. But he did. He sat there, for God knows how long, in the freezing cold, bleeding from multiple wounds, waiting for morning. Why did he do that?’
‘Maybe he was resting. A climb like that is going to wipe anyone out; he would have been losing blood all the way up. So maybe he got to the top, collapsed from exhaustion, and the sun eventually revived him. Then he did it.’
Arkadian frowned. ‘But that’s not how it happened. He didn’t just wake up and topple off the mountain. He stood there with his arms outstretched for at least a couple of hours.’ He mimicked the pose. ‘Why would he do that if he just wanted to end it all? I’m pretty sure the public nature of his death is significant. The only reason we’re standing here having this conversation is because he waited until there was an audience. If he’d pulled this little stunt in the middle of the night I doubt whether it would even have made the news. He knew exactly what he was doing.’
‘OK,’ Reis conceded. ‘So maybe the guy didn’t get enough attention when he was a kid. What difference does it make? He’s still dead.’
Arkadian considered the question.
What difference did it make?
He knew his boss wanted the whole thing dealt with quickly and painlessly. The politic move would be to ignore the natural curiosity he’d been born with and stop asking difficult questions. Then again, he could just turn in his badge and sell holiday apartments or become a tour guide.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I didn’t ask to be put on this case. Your job is to establish how someone died. Mine is to work out why, and in order to do that it’s important to try and understand this guy’s mindset. Jumpers are usually victims – people who can’t cope any more, people who take the path of least resistance to death. But this guy had courage. He wasn’t a classic victim, and he damn sure didn’t take the path of least resistance. Which makes me think his actions meant something to him. Maybe they meant something to someone else too.’
Chapter 28
Athanasius hurried up the corridor after the Abbot, their personal haloes brightening with every step they took.
‘So tell me,’ the Abbot said, without breaking stride, ‘who has made contact from the investigation?’
‘An Inspector Arkadian has been assigned to the case,’ Athanasius replied breathlessly. ‘He has already requested an interview with someone who might have information on the deceased. I told our brothers on the outside to say that the death was a tragedy and we would do everything we could to assist.’
‘Did you say whether he was known to us?’
‘I said there were many people living and working inside the Citadel and we would endeavour to discover if any of them were missing. I wasn’t sure whether or not we wanted to claim him as ours at this point, or whether you would prefer us to remain distant.’
The Abbot nodded. ‘You did well. Inform the public office to maintain the same courteous degree of cooperation, for now. It may be that the question of Brother Samuel’s body will resolve itself without our interference. Once the authorities have completed the post-mortem and no family members come forward to claim the body, we can step forward and offer to take it as a gesture of compassion. It will show to the world what a loving and caring church we are, one prepared to embrace a poor, wretched soul who sought to end his life in such a lonely and tragic way. It will also bring Brother Samuel back to us without our having to admit kinship.’
The Abbot stopped and turned, fixing Athanasius with his sharp, grey eyes.
‘However, in the light of what you have just read we must also be vigilant. We must leave nothing to chance. If anything unusual is reported, anything at all, then we must be ready to get Brother Samuel’s body back immediately, and by any means necessary.’ He stared at Athanasius from beneath his beetled brows. ‘That way, if some miracle does come to pass and he rises again, he will at least be in our custody. Whatever happens, we cannot let our enemies take possession of his body.’
‘As you wish,’ Athanasius replied. ‘But surely if what you have just shown me is the only remaining copy of the book, who else would know of the . . .’ he hesitated, not quite sure how to describe the ancient words scratched on the sheet of slate. He didn’t want to use the word ‘prophecy’ because that would imply that the words were the will of God, which in itself would be heresy. ‘Who else could know the specifics of the . . . prediction . . .?’
The Abbot nodded approvingly, picking up on his chamber-lain’s caution. It confirmed to him that Athanasius was the right man to handle the official side of the situation; he had the political sophistication and the discretion for it. The unofficial side he would handle himself. ‘We cannot simply trust that the destruction of all the books and the people who carried them has also destroyed the words and thoughts they contained,’ he explained. ‘Lies are like weeds. You can grub them up, poison the root, burn them away to nothing – but they always find a way to return. So we must assume that this “prediction”, as you wisely refer to it, will be known in some form to our enemies, and that they will be preparing to act upon it. But do not worry, Brother,’ he said, laying a hand heavy as a bear’s paw on Athanasius’s shoulder. ‘We have withstood far more than this in our long and colourful history. We must simply do now as we have always done: stay one step ahead, pull up the drawbridge and wait for the outside threat to withdraw.’
‘And if it does not?’ Athanasius asked.
The hand tightened on his shoulder. ‘Then we attack it with everything we have.’
Chapter 29
Reis reached across the monk’s body to a point at the top of the sternum, pressed down firmly with a long-handled scalpel and drew the blade smoothly down through the flesh, clear to the pubic bone, carefully following the line of the existing scar. He completed the Y-incision by making two more deep cuts from the top of the one he had just made to the outer edge of each of the monk’s shattered collarbones. Finally he cut away the skin and muscle from the monk’s chest and folded it open, revealing the ruined ribs beneath. At this point he would usually need surgical shears or the Stryker saw to cut through the cage of bone that protected the heart, lungs and other internal organs, but the ma
ssive impact of the landing had done most of the work for him. With just a few ligament cuts he managed to gain access to the chest cavity.
‘Tap the square for me, would you,’ Reis said, nodding towards the monitor. ‘Got my hands full here.’
Arkadian looked at the bloody section of ribs Reis was clutching and restarted the recording.
‘OK,’ Reis said, the jaunty tone back in his voice, ‘first impressions of the internal organs are that they are surprisingly well preserved, considering the impact. The ribs clearly did their job, even if they were all but destroyed in the process.’
He laid the ribcage down in a stainless-steel tray then made some well-practised cuts inside the body cavity to detach the larynx, oesophagus and ligaments connecting the major organs to the spinal cord before lifting the entire block out in one piece and transferring them to a wide metal container.
‘The liver shows some evidence of haemorrhaging,’ he said, ‘but none of the major organs are particularly pale so he didn’t bleed out. The subject probably died of systemic organ failure following massive trauma, which I’ll confirm once I’ve run the tox and tissue tests.’
He carried the container to an examination bench by the wall and started taking routine measurements of the liver, heart and lungs, as well as tissue samples from each.
Arkadian looked up at the TV in the corner and was once again confronted by the eerie sight of the man now lying in pieces in front of him standing proud and very much alive on the summit of the Citadel. It was the footage all the networks were now using. It showed the monk shuffling towards the edge. Glancing down. Tipping forward, then suddenly dropping from view. The camera jerked downwards and zoomed wide as it tried to follow the fall. It tightened back in, losing focus as it found him again and struggled to keep him in frame. It was like watching the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination, or the footage of the planes hitting the Twin Towers. There was something momentous about it, and deeply terrible. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. At the last moment the camera lost him again and pulled wide just in time to reveal the base of the mountain and the crowds of people on the embankment recoiling in shock from where the body had hit the ground.