by Tom Knox
With a confident dexterity, Christine reached inside the black leather case, and took out the skull. ‘It’s very well preserved,’ she said, examining the cranium and the lower jawbone. ’Someone has had it treated it to prevent it from decaying.’
‘But how old is it? What is it? Is it human? What’s with the eyes?’
Christine walked to the light of the long sash windows. She held the skull up, in the slanting sunshine. ‘It’s definitely hominid. But it’s hybrid.’
The door to the office pushed open. It was Sally and Boijer. They stared in shock, at the skull in Christine’s hands.
‘That’s it?’ said Boijer. ‘That’s the Black Book? A human skull?’
Rob nodded. ‘Yep.’
‘Not quite human.’ Christine twisted the skull in her hands. ‘It’s hominid, but there are stark differences between this and a normal Homo sapiens skull. Here, look. The large braincase size, the sagittal size, and the orbitals, very intriguing…’
‘So it’s a crossbreed between humans and…and what?’ asked Rob.
‘No idea. Not Neanderthals. Not Homo habilis. This seems to be some unknown human type; and one with a very large braincase.’
Rob was still in the dark. ‘But I thought humans couldn’t breed with other species? I thought different species couldn’t breed?’
Christine shook her head. ‘Not necessarily. Some species can interbreed. Tigers and lions, for instance. It’s rare but it happens. And this kind of hybridization is not unknown in human evolution. Various experts think we interbred with the Neanderthals.’ She set the skull on the table. Its white teeth glittered in the lamplight. The skull was yellowy cream, and very large.
Dooley was still looking in the musty leather case. ‘There’s something else.’ He reached in, and pulled out a folded document. Rob watched, transfixed, as the Irish detective carried the document to the principal’s desk and laid it next to the skull.
The document was weathered and creased, and made from some form of robust parchment. Yellowed and old: maybe hundreds of years old.
Very carefully, Rob unfolded it; as he did so, the parchment creaked and gave off a distinct and not unpleasant fragrance. Of sadness, and age, and funeral flowers.
They leaned over the parchment as Rob flattened it out. Christine looked down, frowning. The parchment was inscribed with very dark ink, showing a cursory map, and a few lines in a scrawled and archaic script.
‘Aramaic,’ said Christine, almost immediately. ‘It’s Aramaic. Seems to be a fairly unusual form…Let me have a proper look.’
Rob sighed with frustration: the passing of every second was painful. He glanced at the skull, sitting there on the desk next to the parchment. It seemed to be sneering at him. Sneering like Jamie Cloncurry.
Cloncurry! Rob shook himself. They had the Black Book! And Cloncurry needed to know this at once. Rob asked Matthewson if he could use the office computer and the principal nodded his assent.
Rob went to the principal’s desk, logged on the computer, and got straight through to Cloncurry. The videolink buzzed into life. The webcam was working. Within a few seconds Cloncurry came briskly and suddenly into view. He was grinning, maliciously. ‘Ah, so I suppose you have found it. In a bus stop perhaps? Maybe in a bingo hall?’
Rob silenced him by lifting up the skull.
Cloncurry stared. He swallowed, and stared. Rob had never seen the gang-leader nonplussed like this: but the killer seemed discomfited, anxious, almost stunned.
‘You have it, you actually have it.‘ Cloncurry’s voice was phlegmy with anxiety. He started again. ‘And what about…the documents, was there anything else? In the box?’
Sally handed across the parchment. Rob lifted it up and showed it to him. Cloncurry breathed out, long and hard, as if he had been relieved of a terrible burden. ‘All this time. All this time. And in Ireland! So Previn was wrong. I was wrong. Layard was a dead end. And it’s not even in cuneiform!’ Cloncurry shook his head. ‘So. Where was it exactly?’
‘Newman House.’
Cloncurry went quiet. Then he shook his head and laughed, bitterly. ‘Christ. Under the secret stairs!? Jesus Christ. I told them to search properly. Those rancid imbeciles.’ Now he stopped laughing and gazed insolently and contemptuously at the webcam. ‘Still, nothing to be done about it now. My colleagues are lying in coffins. But you can save your daughter’s life-as long as you bring me the Book-the skull and the document. OK? And I want it here within…oh God. Here we go again. Another deadline. How long will it take you morons to get here?’
Rob started to speak but Cloncurry lifted a hand. ’Shut up. Here’s the deal. I’ll give you three more days. That’s surely enough time. Possibly too generous. But that’s me for you, super generous. But please believe me, my patience is running out. Recall that I am psychotic.’ He chortled, and did an exaggerated facial tic, mimicking his own madness. ‘And, guys, when you come, don’t bother bringing your police chums. They’ll be of no use to you. Will they? Because they won’t get much help from Kiribali, or the Kurds. As I think you realize very well. So get on with it, Rob. Fly here, bring the Book, and you can have your Lizzie back, unpickled. You’ve seventy-two hours, and that’s that. The final deadline. Ciaociao.’
The screen went black.
Forrester broke the silence. ‘Of course, we will have to go through the local police, in Turkey. I’ll speak to the Home Office. We can’t have you guys just flying out there. This is a murder case. It’s very complex. As I’m sure you realize.’
Rob narrowed his eyes. ‘Of course.’
‘I’m sorry if this seems bureaucratic, but we’ll be quick, very quick. I promise. It’s just that we need to be careful. And this guy is a nutcase, if you go in alone there’s no guarantee he won’t just, you know. We need local back up. And that means official involvement, approval from Ankara, liaisons with Dublin. All that.’
Rob thought about Kiribali. His lizardly smile. His threats at the airport. ‘Of course.’
Matthewson was hopping from foot to foot again. He evidently wanted this troublesome entourage out of his office but was too polite to say as much. Obediently they all filed outside, led by Rob, carrying the ‘Black Book’-the skull and the map in the old leather box. Sally and Christine came behind, talking quietly. The police, bringing up the rear, were animatedly conversing, almost arguing.
Rob watched the London detective jabbing a finger at Boijer. ‘What the hell are they arguing about?’
Christine shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ Her expression was sardonic. They walked on ahead.
Rob glanced to his left, at Sally, and to his right, at Christine. Then he said, ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘Yes,’ said Christine. ‘The police will screw it all up.’
‘Exactly. All that “talk to the Home Office” stuff. Jesus.’ Rob felt the anger and frustration surge inside him. ‘And talk to bloody Kiribali? What are they on? Kiribali is probably in league with Cloncurry anyway. Who else is helping that bastard?’
‘And if they go through Ankara it will take ages,’ Christine went on, ‘and they will antagonize the Kurds, the whole thing will be a terrible fiasco. They don’t understand. They’ve never been there, never seen Sanliurfa…’
‘So maybe you have to go. Now.’ Sally leaned and squeezed Rob’s hand. ‘Just do it. Take the Black Book, the skull-whatever it is-just take it to Cloncurry, and give it to him. Just fly there, now, tomorrow: the police can’t stop you. Do what Cloncurry wants. She’s our daughter.’
Rob nodded slowly. ‘Absolutely. And I know someone who can help…in Sanliurfa.’
Christine raised a hand. ‘But we still can’t trust Cloncurry. Can we? Forrester is right about that, at least.’ With the last rays of the setting sun soft on her face, Christine looked earnestly at Rob and then at Sally. ‘Sure he’s hunting for the Book. But once he’s got it, once we give him the Black Book he may just…do what he wants anyway. You see? He’s psychotic. As he says. H
e enjoys killing.’
‘So what do we do?’ Rob said despairingly.
“There may be a way. I saw the map.’
‘What?’
‘When we were in the office,’ Christine explained. ‘The parchment is written in Late Ancient Aramaic. The language used by the Canaanites. And I think I can read that. Just about.’
‘And?’
Christine looked down at the leather box, sitting at Rob’s feet. ‘Show me again.’
Rob bent and opened the box, retrieved the parchment and flattened it on his knee. Christine nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’ She pointed at a line of ancient handwriting. ‘It says the “great skull of the ancestors” comes from…“the Valley of the Slaughter”.’
‘So, what’s that then?’
‘It doesn’t say.’
‘Great. OK. So what about the writing? Here. What does that mean?’
‘It mentions the Book of Enoch. It doesn’t quote it.’ She frowned. ‘But it refers to it. And then it says, here: “The Valley of the Slaughter is where our forefathers died”. Yes. Yes, yes.’ Christine pointed at one line on the parchment. ‘And here it says the valley is a day’s walk towards the setting sun, from the “place of worship”.’
‘And this…?’
‘That shows a river and the valleys. And here’s another clue. It says the place of worship is also called “the hill of the navel”! That’s it!’
Rob’s mind was blank. He felt so tired, and so stressed about Lizzie. He glanced at Christine. Her expression was the opposite of his: alert and eager.
She eyed him. ‘The hill of the navel. You don’t remember?’
Rob shook his head, feeling an idiot.
‘Hill of the Navel is the English meaning of the Turkish phrase…Gobekli Tepe.’
A light dawned in Rob’s head.
Across the lawns, the police were evidently concluding their debate, and shaking hands. Christine went on, ‘So. According to this parchment, a day’s walk from Gobekli Tepe, walking west, away from the sun, is the Valley of the Slaughter. And that’s where this skull comes from. And that’s where, I suspect, we will find many others like it. We have to be proactive. Think a few moves ahead. We can bring Cloncurry to us. We need to have something so powerful that he has to hand Lizzie over unharmed. If we actually unearth the secret, implied by the Black Book, contained in the skull and the map, if we dig up the Valley of the Slaughter and find out the truth behind all of this, then he will come to us in supplication. Because that valley is where the secret is hidden. The secret he keeps banging on about. The secret revealed to Jerusalem Whaley that ruined his life. The secret that Cloncurry wants hidden for ever. If we want to have power over Cloncurry we need to go right past him, dig up this valley, find out the secret, and threaten to reveal the mystery, unless he hands over Lizzie. That’s how we win.’
The police were walking towards them now, their debate apparently concluded.
Rob squeezed Sally’s hand, and Christine’s too. He whispered to them both. ‘OK. Let’s do it. Christine and I will fly to Sanliurfa immediately. We do it alone. And we dig up this secret.’
‘And we don’t tell the police,’ said Christine.
Rob turned to Sally. ‘Are you sure about this, Sally? I need your agreement.’
She stared at Rob. ‘I’m…going to trust you, Rob Luttrell.’ Her eyes filled with tears: she fought them back. ‘I’m going to trust you to bring back our daughter. So, yes. Please do it. Please, please, please. Just bring Lizzie back.’
Forrester was rubbing his hands as he approached them. ‘Getting a bit nippy, shall we head for the airport? Have to get the Home Office onto it. We’ll pile the pressure on, I promise.’
Rob nodded. Behind the DCI loomed the sombre grey elevations of Newman House. For a second Rob had an image of the house as it had been when Buck Egan and Buck Whaley had held their roistering parties in the guttering light of Georgian lamps; the tall young men laughing and roaring as they set fire to black cats soaked in whisky.
47
Christine and Rob flew to Turkey straight from London the same evening, after telling blatant lies to Forrester and Boijer.
They decided to take the Black Book with them: Christine was obliged to show her archaeological credentials at Heathrow and flash her most charming smile to get a strange and arguably human skull past London customs. In Turkey they had to be even more careful. They flew to Dyarbakir, via Istanbul, then made a long, dusty, six-hour cab-ride to Sanliurfa, through the night and the dawn. They didn’t want to announce their arrival to Kiribali by turning up at Sanliurfa Airport, conspicuous, Western and unwanted; indeed they didn’t want Kiribali to know they were anywhere near Turkey.
Just being here, in Kurdistan, was risky enough.
In the thrumming heart of broiling Urfa they headed for the Hotel Haran. Right outside the lobby Rob found his man-Radevan-sheltering from the hot morning sun, arguing noisily about football with the other cab drivers, and acting a little grouchy. But the grumpiness was due to Ramadan: everyone was grouchy, hungry and thirsty through the hours of daylight.
Rob went straight for it and asked Radevan if he could find some friends to help them dig the Valley of the Slaughter. He also quietly asked him to procure some guns, as well. Rob wanted to be ready for anything.
Initially, Radevan was moody and unsure: he went off to ‘consult’ with his numberless cousins. But an hour later he returned with seven friends and relatives, all smiling Kurdish lads. In the meantime Rob had bought some second-hand shovels and hired a couple of very old Land Rovers.
This was probably going to be the most makeshift archaeological dig of the last two hundred years, but they had no choice. They had only two days to unearth the final answer to all their questions, two days to unearth the Valley of the Slaughter, and lure Cloncurry into a position in which he would have to give up Lizzie. And Radevan had done his job with the guns: they were concealed in a shabby old sack: two shotguns and a German pistol. Radevan winked at Rob as they made the transaction. ‘You see I help you, Mr Robbie. I like Englishman, they help the Kurds.’ He grinned, luxuriously, as Rob handed over the wad of dollars.
As soon as everything was stowed in the cars, Rob jumped in the driver’s seat and keyed the engine. His impatience was almost unbearable. Just being in the same city as Lizzie, yet not knowing where she was or how she was suffering made him feel as if he was having a serious heart attack. He had pains shooting up his arm; palpitations of anguish. His jaw hurt. He thought of Lizzie, tied to a chair, as the last of Urfa’s suburbs became a haze of dust and greyness in the rearview mirror.
Christine was in the seat beside him. Three Kurdish men were in the back. Radevan was driving the second Land Rover, right behind. The guns were hidden in their sack, under Rob’s seat. The Black Box, in its worn leather box, was firmly wedged in the boot.
As they rattled along, the familiar talkativeness of the Kurds lapsed into whispers, and then into silence. Their silence was matched by the deadness of the landscape as they headed out into the vastness of the desert. The yellow and desolate wastes.
The heat was quite incredible: high summer on the edge of the Syriac wilderness. Rob sensed the nearness of Gobekli as they motored south. But this time they drove straight past the Gobekli turn off, and were waved through several army checkpoints further down the hot Damascus road. Christine had bought a detailed map: she reckoned she knew precisely where to find the valley.
‘Here’, she said, at one turning, very authoritatively. They took a right and barrelled for half an hour along unmetalled dirt tracks. And then at last they crested a rise. The two cars halted, and everyone climbed out: the Kurds looking dirty, sweaty and mildly mutinous. The shovels were unloaded, the trowels, ropes and backpacks were dumped on the sandy hilltop.
To their left was a bare and narrow valley.
‘That’s it,’ said Christine. ‘The Valley of the Slaughter. They still call it the Valley of Killing. It’s actual
ly marked on the map.’
Rob gazed and listened. He could hear-nothing. Nothing but the mournful desert wind. The site-the entire region-was strangely hushed, even for the deserts near Gobekli.
‘Where is everyone?’ he said.
‘Gone. Evacuated. Moved by the government,’ replied Christine.
‘Huh?’
‘That’s why.’ She was pointing left where an expanse of silver flatness glistened in the distance. ’That’s the water from the Great Anatolian Project. The Euphrates. They are flooding the whole region, for irrigation. Several major archaeological sites have already flooded-it’s very controversial.’
‘Christ-it’s only a few klicks away!’
‘And it’s coming in our direction. But that levee will stop it. The earthbank over there.’ Christine pointed, and frowned. Her white shirt was freckled with yellow dust. ‘But we need to be careful: these inundations can be very quick. And unpredictable.’
‘We need to be quick anyway,‘ said Rob.
They turned and descended the hill into the valley. Within a few minutes Christine had got the Kurds digging. As they worked, the size of the task assailed Rob. The valley was a mile long, at least. In two days, their team would only be able to turn over a fraction of it. Maybe twenty per cent. Maybe thirty. And they wouldn’t be able to dig very deep.
So they were going to have to be lucky to find anything. The sombreness and fear that Rob had been feeling since they had returned to the Kurdish desert was joined by a rising surge of ennui. A great tide of pointlessness. Lizzie was going to die. She was going to die. And Rob felt useless: he felt he would drown in the futility of it all, be entombed like the thirsty lands around him, awaiting that vast silver coffinlid of water. The Great Anatolian Project.
But he knew he had to stay strong, to see this through and so he tried to improve his mood. He reminded himself what Breitner had said of Christine: that she was ‘one of the best archaeologists of her generation’. He reminded himself that the great Isobel Previn had taught Christine at Cambridge.