‘My doctor speaks excellent English. And he seems really kind.’
‘But this is unacceptable! You have to let me do something. My mother drummed into me this terrible sense of duty, you see. I shall never forgive her for it.’
‘You rescued me last night. Isn’t that enough?’
‘On the contrary, it’s the entire problem. Such a mistake to help people, don’t you think? They come to matter to you. It’s so unfair. It should be the other way around. But it never is. We’ll say goodbye and you’ll never give me another thought, while I’ll be thinking fondly of you for years.’ He tore off the last chunk of peel then ripped the orange in two and offered her half. ‘Besides, I was hoping that you and I might be able to…’ But then he looked at her again, lying there with her head bandaged, and he stopped himself.
‘You and I might be able to what?’ she asked.
His eyes slid sideways. He crossed one leg over the other and twisted his foot in circles. He was so easy to read, she vowed she’d get him to the poker table. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have brought it up.’
‘Brought up what?’
‘Seriously. It can wait.’
‘I’m fine, honestly. Tell me. Please.’
‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘But promise to stop me if it gets too much. I mean it. You must promise.’ He waited until she nodded, then delved into his bag for a local newspaper already folded to an inside page. ‘As I said, I feel a responsibility to you, as Giulia’s friend. But I feel another responsibility too, as an archaeologist.’ He set the paper on her lap then directed her attention to a colour photograph showing various artefacts on a white background: a gold coin, a signet ring, a pair of brooches and a decorative silver dolphin with its tail torn off, as though it had been wrested from a larger piece. He touched the coin first. ‘A Honorius solidus,’ he said. ‘Minted from 402 to 406 to commemorate victory in the Battle of Verona. That gives us the right date, yes? Now look at the dolphin. Does it not remind you of the gifts Constantine gave to the Basilica of St John? And these two fibulae. I’m no expert on Visigothic jewellery, but they most certainly loved their eagles; and when did the Romans ever use throwing axes?’
‘They didn’t,’ murmured Carmen, but distractedly.
He glanced shrewdly at her. ‘What is it?’
She didn’t answer, just stared uncertainly at the remaining artefact, an oval semi-precious sealstone ring, dark blue with green and grey flecks, about the size of her thumbnail. It had a device inscribed in it, and faint traces of letters around its edge, but all too badly abraded to make out. Except that it was familiar somehow. ‘These were all Vittorio’s?’ she asked.
Cesco nodded. ‘From his money belt.’
‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Oh?’
‘When we were driving back from the station, he kept touching his stomach whenever we crossed a bridge. I thought maybe he had an ulcer. But I’ll bet he was just checking his belt. You know, like when you see a sign warning of pickpockets, and you instinctively pat your pocket.’
Cesco nodded. ‘I don’t know if Giulia told you, but I was raised around here. You know how crazes sweep a place? Well, every so often, Cosenza would get swept by Alaric fever. When the river ran low, and the frenzy was on us, the whole city would turn out with spades and metal detectors. No one ever found anything, of course. Except Vittorio, it seems. But that never stopped us.’ He gestured at the window. ‘The sun is out, it’s the weekend. An article in the local paper has a photograph of several valuable artefacts that might easily once have belonged to Alaric and his men, suggesting that his tomb with all its fabled treasure is on the verge of being found. Believe me, this place is about go mad. And what if someone gets lucky? Think of it. All those priceless artefacts looted to be sold off on the black market or even melted down. All that precious knowledge lost forever. It would be the greatest tragedy of modern archaeology. I can’t let that happen. I… I just can’t.’
‘But… what can you do?’
His look of determination faded. He looked self-conscious suddenly. Aware of his own smallness and absurdity. ‘I don’t know yet. Except I thought, you being a historian of the era, and me an archaeologist… And both of us knowing Giulia. I thought maybe we could put our heads together…’ He looked at her again, lying there in bed, and shook his head. ‘Forgive me. I wasn’t thinking.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right. We need to do this. One hundred per cent. But how?’
He shrugged. ‘I did have one thought. Though I’m not sure how much use it will be. Everyone else will be searching for the tomb, right? But people have been searching for the tomb for hundreds of years, and no one has found it yet. So I say let’s not do that. Let’s use our advantages instead. We know history, we know archaeology. Most of all, we knew Giulia. She and her father had obviously found something exciting. That’s why they called us in. Maybe it was Alaric’s tomb, maybe not. But that’s what we should look for: for whatever the Suraces thought they’d found. If it turns out to be nothing, fine, we can put the whole business behind us. But if it really is Alaric…’
She looked at him doubtfully. ‘Sure. But how?’
He sat forward, enthusiasm giving his skin an attractive flush. ‘Well, for one thing, you know that packing case Giulia had you bring down? Apparently it contained a ground-penetrating radar. No doubt that’s why she invited me along, because those machines are a nightmare to work with if you haven’t used them before, which I have. But the point is that that particular model isn’t designed to work in water, or even in badly waterlogged places. So why borrow it for the Busento?’
‘Maybe it was all the university had. Maybe Giulia didn’t know any better.’
‘Sapienza will have all sorts. And Giulia was smarter than that.’
Carmen nodded. ‘So you’re suggesting that whatever they found wasn’t directly beneath the river?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And I was supposed to take it back with me to Rome on Sunday night,’ said Carmen, getting into the spirit herself. ‘And Vittorio talked of taking me on all kinds of outings while I was here. They must have had a very specific area in mind to be able to promise that on top of everything else.’
‘You see!’ he beamed. ‘A small site far enough from the river to be dry. Already we’re making progress. Anything else?’
‘There is one thing,’ she said hesitantly. It had actually been bothering her for a while. ‘Giulia had exams coming up. She’d been studying really hard, but enjoying it too. You know how invigorating revision can be, when it’s going well? Anyway, I bumped into her at the library last Sunday. She made a joke about how she’d be virtually living there for the next six weeks. Only when she called me on Thursday night to invite me down, she was already here herself.’
‘Something happened, then,’ nodded Cesco. ‘Sometime between last Sunday and Thursday, something happened that was intriguing enough to bring her down here, despite her exams. Then she realised she needed the GPR, so she called you to have you bring it down.’
‘I think so, yes,’ agreed Carmen.
Cesco grinned. She grinned too, she couldn’t help herself. His excitement was infectious. But then he grew serious again, he checked his watch. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to go right now, to check out an apartment. I thought if I was to do this properly, I should establish a base here for the next few days. And the place I slept last night, you wouldn’t believe how squalid it was. So uncomfortable, and not even its own bathroom!’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘How about you? Will you be staying here?’
‘No, actually,’ she said. ‘They kick me out at six.’
‘Oh,’ he said. His ankle began turning its awkward circles again. She vowed to invest in a pack of cards. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘forgive me if this is out of order, but the apartment I’m off to see, it has two bedrooms.’
‘Are you suggesting that we share?’
‘Forgive me,’ he said
hurriedly, looking ashamed. ‘A stupid idea.’
‘No, not at all. If I can’t trust the man who just saved my life, who can I trust? Do you have details?’
He took his laptop from his bag. ‘See for yourself. Only five-star reviews, Wi-Fi, even a balcony overlooking the Busento. You’ll probably think me a fool, but it seemed like an omen.’
She glanced through the pictures. It was everything he said, and nicely furnished, light and spacious too. ‘It looks perfect.’
‘Then…?’
‘Yes. Let’s do it.’
‘Fantastic. Then how about I go grab it before it goes? Then I can swing by later to pick you up. Six o’clock you said, yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Six o’clock.’
‘Great,’ he grinned. ‘I’ll see you then.’
She watched him walk to the door and out. Only when he was gone did she realise how cheerful she was suddenly feeling, how inappropriate it was to feel this spirit of adventure. Yet she couldn’t altogether shake it. Nor, after the bleak long months she’d just passed, did she much want to. She took another look at the newspaper he’d left her, specifically at the photograph of Vittorio’s five artefacts. Again it was the signet ring that caught her eye. She’d seen one just like it before, she was sure of it. But where? For the life of her, it wouldn’t come. She took out her laptop from her overnight bag to check the newspaper’s website. They had, as she’d hoped, a better version of the picture. She studied it a while without success. But it was important, she knew it in her gut; so she copied and posted it, together with a link to the story, to a late antiquity discussion group she belonged to, asking her fellow members for their help.
Chapter Ten
I
The apartment’s owner lived abroad, but their downstairs neighbour kept two spare sets of keys. Cesco handed over cash for the next four days then let himself in. He put his gear in the single bedroom, leaving Carmen the double en suite. Now he needed supplies. There was a cluster of shops and a cafe downstairs, but it was also market day along the river embankment, so he spent a pleasurable forty minutes wandering among the stalls of gaudy shoes and stretchy bright clothes, haggling cheerfully with smallholders touting their own fresh produce, with fishmongers displaying their morning’s catch on trays that glittered with salt and ice.
Back in the apartment, he took a deckchair out onto a large balcony ringed by terracotta tubs. As the listing had promised, it looked right over the Busento, barely a stone’s throw from where it joined the Crati. A series of weirs had been built to regulate the river’s flow through the city, and there was one directly beneath, the roiled water at the foot of which had taken captive several plastic water bottles and chunks of white styrofoam, which now bobbed like exhausted salmon gathering themselves for their next leap. There he continued his refresher course, skimming papers on the early Church, the settlement patterns of barbarian tribes and the Roman emperors of late antiquity. In case Carmen asked him about his time at Oxford University, he investigated their postgraduate courses and found one led by a gorgeous, dark-eyed professor called Karen Porter, who’d recently written a book and fronted a TV series on the famous Sicilian city of Syracuse. He downloaded and played the first episode in the background as he read more papers, turning it up loud when his neighbours got into an argument and then again when a local politician drove by below, campaigning from the back of a pickup with loudspeakers strapped to its roof. He’d only just driven off when there came a loud rumble from across the river and Cesco glanced up to see a line of four black Harleys cruising along the far bank. He fell instantly to all fours and scrambled back inside. The bikes turned up a side street and disappeared. Dieter and his mates. But what the hell were they doing here? Had they tracked him somehow?
He searched again for his name online, but still found nothing. Then he realised. Any man nuts enough to have Alaric’s name tattooed across their back was sure to be drawn to news that his tomb was about to be discovered. Even so, he’d need to be careful whenever he went out. His van had already had its makeover; he himself had not. It was time for his hair and beard to go.
He took his scissors and electric razor into the bathroom then set to work.
II
The prison dig creaked slowly into life. A pair of police vans arrived, disgorging a dozen uniformed officers with riot gear who for some bizarre reason set up crash barriers around the proposed drill site, then stood there diligently guarding them, despite the heat. A ministry lawyer came next, driving a blue BMW. She was short and stout and furious, as if she’d been dragged here from her daughter’s wedding. She presented Kaufman and Zara with non-disclosure agreements to sign, in which they gave up rights to everything connected with the excavation and any discoveries they might make, threatening punishments for breach so absurdly over the top that Zara bridled as she read. ‘And if I say no?’ she asked.
‘I’m sure you have other places you could be. I know I do.’
Their mechanical digger finally arrived from Tel Aviv, on the back of a flatbed truck. It was a push-me-pull-you kind of device, its opposing arms fitted with a scoop and a jackhammer. They directed the operator to where they wanted him to drill, which was the furthest point from the prison wall that had a cavity beneath. Then they retreated into the shade and covered their ears as the jackhammer turned the bedrock into rubble that was then cleared with the scoop.
The noise was dreadful. The air filled with dust that clotted thickly in Zara’s mouth. She went to ask the operator how much longer it would take to make the breach. He shrugged and suggested at least two more hours. She retreated to her car, put the air con on and checked messages on her phone. To her mild surprise, they included dozens of notifications from a late antiquity discussion board that she helped moderate, and which rarely received that many in a month.
She went to see what had caused the fuss and found a link to a story about Visigothic artefacts in a Cosenza newspaper that had been posted by an American doctoral student called Carmen Nero, asking for help identifying a certain signet ring. And an identification was exactly what she’d got, linking it to a sealstone ring held by a Viennese museum, which bore around its perimeter the inscription:
ALARICVS REIKS GOTHORVM
Alaric, king of the Goths.
She got out of her car and went in search of Kaufman. He was lying stretched out on the front seats of the university van he’d brought, loaded with the various pieces of equipment they’d likely be needing later on. He woke groggily to her rap upon his window and removed his panama hat from over his face. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
She gave him her phone to look at as she explained the background. His eyebrow arched like a fishing rod at its first nibble. ‘Cosenza, you say?’
‘Not just that. On the bank of the Busento.’
He gave a grunt. ‘You wait two millennia for one lead…’
She looked across at the dig site. ‘What do you think? Should we say something?’
‘To whom? And whatever for? We’ll find it or we won’t. This doesn’t change that.’ He gestured vaguely at the jackhammer, still thundering away. ‘And we’ll have our answer soon enough.’
Chapter Eleven
I
The afternoon raced by for Carmen, so busy was she. It took a good half-hour on the phone to convince her mother she was fine and talk her out of flying over. She spoke to a woman at her insurance company to get her claim underway. She kept returning to the late antiquity message board, where crowdsourcing had already solved the mystery of the signet ring for her, and was now working on the other artefacts. She emailed Professor Matteo Bianchi at Sapienza University to let him know what had happened and promising to do what she could to get him his ground-penetrating radar back. Friends began to call. Some she answered. Others she sent to voicemail. One of those was Charlie. It was a good five minutes before she could bring herself to listen to his message. He expressed his concern and best wishes in exactly the right way, and offered any help
he could provide should she need it.
It made her feel quite ill.
Last night’s ispettore arrived to take her second statement, accompanied by a young woman with excellent English, except with a Calabrian accent so thick that Carmen kept having to ask her to repeat herself while staring rudely at her lips. They took fingerprints and a DNA swab while they were there, then the ispettore asked her about her plans and traded phone numbers. Her kindly doctor arrived shortly afterwards. He checked for signs of concussion then declared her fit to leave. She was surprised to find it was half past five already. She dressed and packed and took her red roses down with her to reception, where she signed some forms and gave her contact details, and they took a copy of her credit card in lieu of her passport. Then she sat on a bench and waited for Cesco to arrive. But when he did, he was so transformed that Carmen didn’t even spot him until he waved and walked across. ‘Your hair!’ she exclaimed. ‘Your beautiful hair!’
He scowled and ran a hand over his shaven scalp. ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said darkly. ‘After I left you this morning, I got this itching in my hair and beard. You know what it turned out to be? Lice! Lice! That damned pit I stayed in last night.’ He gave a violent shudder. ‘I have a phobia about those damned things. Ever since school. So off it had to come.’
‘Oh,’ she said. It was absurd to be unnerved by a haircut. And yet she was. The laid-back academic of earlier today was gone. In his place, a Cesco altogether tougher and more dangerous. She’d have thought a lot longer before agreeing to share an apartment with him if he’d looked like this. But he picked up her overnight bag before she could think of anything to say, and led the way outside. She took out her phone as she followed, ostensibly to check for messages, but in truth to snap his photograph instead, then another when they reached his van, making sure to get his licence plate. She looked up to see him grinning, fully aware of what she was up to. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘I could be anyone.’
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