On the Fifth Day (36 page)

P w
= pooled within-sample covariance matrix Thomas stared at the numbers and the formula, but could make nothing of them beyond the fact that the numbers looked like measurements in millimeters.

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But measurements of what?

The next folder contained graphs, and numbers, apparently for a larger set of samples, only some of which reappeared in the other folder. With these there was a cover letter, in English, dated March 10, from a company called Beta Analytics in Mi

ami, Florida. The pertinent information seemed to be a column of data keyed to sample numbers: 250 +- 75 BP (BETA-895)

[Sample 1A], 1000 +- 75 BP (BETA-896) [Sample 1B], right through to 200 +- 75 BP (BETA-909) [Sample 25D]. Thomas read over the numbers twice, looking for a pattern, or something, anything, that would make some kind of sense to him, but it was hopeless. The symbol in the middle of each data cluster resembled a cross, but it was surely a margin-of

error marker. 250 plus or minus 75. But 250 what?

Years?

Perhaps. But what did "BP" mean?

He just didn't have the knowledge or skills. For what seemed like the hundredth time since Ed died, he felt com

pletely out of his depth.

CHAPTER 76

"What were you doing in Naples?" asked Kumi.

"Research," said Watanabe.

"Archaeology?"

"Not really," he said, losing interest in the subject. "Tourist stuff, mainly. Just looking around."

"Anything in particular? Renaissance? Ancient Roman?"

There was that look again, cagy, watchful. Kumi sipped her champagne.

"Just looking around," he repeated.

"Do you have your own collection?" she said, shifting tack.

"Ancient artifacts?"

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"Some," he said.

"Valuable?" she asked, feigning an almost erotic excitement.

"Some," he said again, smiling. "Very."

"Where do you keep them?"

"At home. I could drive you over if you like . . . ?"

The question hung in the air for a moment as Kumi thought. In answer, she drained her glass and stood up. Something was bothering Matsuhashi. Not that there was any

thing new about that. The last six months had planted more nagging anxieties in the back of his mind than he had experi

enced in the first twenty-four years of his life. But this was dif

ferent. It was tugging at him, just out of earshot, like a voice over a badly tuned radio that faded in and out before you could grasp the words.

Like a memory.

It was something to do with Knight, with both the Knights, in fact: the dead priest, and his brother who was pretending to be a journalist.

He turned the TV off, snapped open a can of Kirin, and flipped open his laptop. He typed in the URL for Edward Knight's church, hoping it hadn't been updated yet. It had. The new guy was there now, Jim Gornall, and there was an obituary for Knight with requests for prayers. Some of the old images had been collected into a little tribute album, and Mat

suhashi set it to slideshow as he sipped his beer. The pictures came up for five seconds at a time: Knight with a youth group in casual clothes, Knight with the bishop at a confirmation, Knight saying mass in vestments of green and gold, Knight with a hammer on a Habitat for Humanity building site, Knight presiding over a wedding . . .

Wait. Go back.

He stopped the slideshow and studied the image: Edward Knight, perhaps five years younger than when Matsuhashi had seen him last, and the happy couple, the groom looking oddly like him as only a brother can, and the bride . . . 270

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He picked up the phone and dialed, his eyes straying back to the computer screen.

Watanabe closed the trailer door as the phone began to ring inside.

"You need to get that?" asked Kumi.

"Nah," he said, aiming the Mercedes key fob at the car till the alarm system chirped and the doors unlocked.

"Good," she said. "I don't like being upstaged."

He grinned and escorted her to the car, opening the passen

ger door with a bow of mock chivalry.

Kumi climbed in. Watanabe had just closed the door and was walking around to the other side when she heard his cell phone go off. Through the driver's side window she saw him hold it up and consider the incoming number. He sighed, mouthed "work" through the window and raised the phone to his ear.

The computer was, not surprisingly, password protected. Frus

trated and antsy, Thomas logged on as a workstation user, went online, and pulled up his e-mail. As he did so, he fished in his pocket for a card, steeled himself, and picked up the phone, hoping he remembered the country code sequence. It rang three times before she answered.

"Deborah," he said, "this is Thomas Knight."

He thought he heard her draw in her breath, but she said nothing.

"I know this is unexpected, and you probably have heard all sorts of things about me, but I assure you . . ."

"I know you didn't kill those people," said Deborah. She sounded not so much sure as decisive, as if she had taken a dive from a high board and knew that any faltering now would lead only to disaster.

Another leap of faith.

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"Thank you," he said. "Can you pull up that picture you sent me? The one from the article about the Japanese site?"

"Hold on," she said.

He opened the image and considered it.

"Could you date it?" said Thomas, staring at the glowing image of the silver cross with the legged fish in the center.

"Not reliably, not from a picture. Stylistically I would say it was medieval, European, possibly seventh or eighth century."

"And the fish?"

There was a pause.

"I see it," was all she said.

"And?"

"What are you asking me, Thomas?"

"I'm asking if this could have come from the grave site you've been excavating in Paestum. You said you thought it had been picked over before you got there. Could this have come from that grave?"

"I can't make that kind of assessment based on a picture, Thomas," she said, her voice rising. "Thomas, if you start say

ing that this cross came from my site in Italy, you are making a very serious accusation against the Japanese archaeologist who claims to have found the piece there. You just can't do that without real evidence. It's potentially slanderous."

"Could it have come from the Paestum grave?"

"You aren't listening . . ."

"I am, and I appreciate your caution on my behalf, but just tell me. The possibility must have occurred to you or you wouldn't have sent me the article! Could this cross have been looted from the Paestum site?"

"It matches the crosses painted on the tomb slabs. The fish is an unusual detail because of the oversized front fins. I haven't seen anything like it outside this region and nowhere else in Christian art. That still doesn't mean the Japanese site is a hoax. Maybe there was some kind of early evangelical movement we don't know about that originated in Italy but traveled to Japan . . ."

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"No," said Thomas. "It's all wrong. There's something go

ing on, something big. Ed found out about it. He must have."

"I thought the Japanese guy who was killed . . ."

"Satoh," said Thomas.

"I thought he said the cross was from Herculaneum?" she said.

"But that's too early, isn't it?" said Thomas. "I think he was lying, trying to feed me a line that would make me look for it harder, push me to learn what he had not been able to."

"Thomas, listen to me," said Deborah. "If you are getting close to what got Ed killed, they--whoever they are--will know. You need to get out of there before you get yourself killed."

"Maybe," said Thomas. "Not yet."

Jim was freaking out. When the trailer door had opened, he had breathed a sigh of relief. Kumi had got through the ordeal okay, maybe had learned something useful, and was now out and safe. Then Watanabe had followed her out and together they had gotten into his swanky Merc, but not before the ar

chaeologist had taken a cell phone call.

Jim was parked across the street and the light was bad, but he had seen the look on Watanabe's face, the way he checked back to where Kumi was sitting in the car, waiting for him, the way he stepped away from the vehicle to finish his phone call. And then, when he had joined her inside, there was something about the way he spun his wheels as he pulled quickly away that seemed more than machismo.

She was in danger. He felt it in his bones. He didn't know how her cover had been blown, but it had, and now everything was falling apart.

He swung the rented Toyota out into the street and fol

lowed, fumbling in his pocket for the cell phone.

* * *

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"What about the bones?" said Thomas to Deborah. "The Japa

nese site contains European bones that seem to date from the same period as the cross. Could they have come from the Paestum grave?"

"No," she said, and now she was definitive, the former gray, cautious note in her voice quite gone. "Bones don't sur

vive in Paestum. The site has been too wet for too long. No human bones have survived from the occupied period."

"So he would have to have gotten them from somewhere else," said Thomas. The idea hit him immediately. "Pietro as

sumed that Satoh was the man he had called Tanaka, but what if he wasn't? What if the monsignor had met an entirely dif

ferent Japanese man who was calling himself Tanaka?"

"Watanabe?" said Deborah, incredulous.

" '
Took him inside,
' " said Thomas, Pietro's words echoing through him. "That's what he said before he died. It was all his fault, he said. He took Tanaka inside."

"Inside where?"

"The Fontanelle," said Thomas. "And, knowingly or other

wise, Pietro gave Watanabe what he needed."

"Oh my God," said Deborah, revulsion and outrage audible over the telephone line's muffling distance.

"He had several crates arrive a few weeks before the Kofun find. His assistant hasn't seen inside them. I got the impres

sion that was unusual."

"You think they contained . . . ?"

"Bones," said Thomas. "Yes."

There was a momentary silence, then Thomas said, "Can I describe some lab results to you: see if you can help me make sense of them?"

"Sure," she said.

Matsuhashi moved quietly across the darkening forecourt. The front doors of the Yamanashi lab were still open, as his teacher had feared. Anyone could be inside. Of course, they 274

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weren't concerned about anyone. They were concerned about Knight.

There had been no car parked outside but that meant noth

ing. The graduate student walked quickly, silently, along the ground-floor corridor to the stairs. All the lights were out, which was probably as well. He palmed the knife in his pocket and stalked softly down to where a crack of light showed through the splintered jamb of Watanabe's office door. He moved soundlessly, like an assassin.

CHAPTER 77

"Does the name Beta Analytics mean anything to you?" said Thomas.

"Yeah," said Deborah. "They're a testing lab in Florida. The museum used them once when CAIS in Athens was over capacity. They are fast."

"What kind of testing do they do?"

"Radiocarbon dating. Why?"

"So Watanabe was trying to determine the age of some

thing. What does BP mean?"

"Before Present," said Deborah. "Though it really means

'before 1950.' "

So the numbers were years counted back from 1950, plus or minus 75.

"Okay," said Thomas, "listen to this." He looked at the col

umn of data, but the cell phone in Thomas's pocket vibrated suddenly.

"Hold on," he said to Deborah, putting the phone on the desk. "Yes?" he said into the cell.

It was Jim.

"Watanabe has got Kumi in his car. He might know who she is."

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Thomas leaped to his feet and started moving toward the fractured door at the exact moment that it cannoned in on him. It hit him square in the face, sending him sprawling backward as Matsuhashi burst in, launching himself directly at Thomas. The bluish light of the computer screen flashed briefly along the blade in his hand, and the cell phone flew from Thomas's palm as the two men connected.

Thomas was completely overwhelmed. The other man was younger, stronger, skilled, and prepared for the fight. Even without the knife he would have been too much for him. The student pinned him easily, straddling him, holding his arms in place with one hand and one knee so that his knife hand stayed free and controlled. Thomas had nothing left but his voice.

"It's too late, Matsuhashi," he said, unnecessarily loud. The Japanese man glanced at the phone on the desk, saw it was off the hook, and clicked the phone cradle with one hand. Then he picked up the fallen cell phone, pocketed it, and re

turned to the desk phone, dialing without taking his eyes off Thomas.

"You are in a lot of trouble," he said, almost casually. Thomas drew himself up into a sitting position, confused.

"You too," he said.

"I doubt that," the other smiled.

"I told you," said Thomas. "I know about the whole thing."

The student paused and let the phone click back into place. His expression was difficult to read, but something was there, beneath the surface amusement, that was . . . what?

Curious? Apprehensive?

Maybe.

"Your boss should lock all his files away better," said Thomas, testing his left wrist where the other man had knelt on it.

"What is it that you think you know?" said the student. "If it's interesting, maybe I won't hand you over to the police."

The police? In the circumstances, Thomas would be de

lighted to merely be arrested for breaking and entering. Some