Secrets of the Dead (27 page)

And?
He waits for more, giving me every chance. When he sees there’s nothing, he gives a bitter laugh. ‘Didn’t you know? I’ve divided it between my sons. Claudius, Constantius and Constans will each inherit a third.
Mundus est omnis divisus in partes tres
.’ He laughs again, so desperate it sounds like he’s sobbing. ‘If only things had been different.’

If only things had been different
. He can rewrite the past as much as he likes, but some facts are indelible.

‘Good luck against the Persians.’

His finger draws a line in the dust on the altar, then bisects it with another. ‘I’ll be glad to get away. Sometimes I feel this city’s killing me.’

I leave him alone in his mausoleum, dwarfed by the scaffolding of his unfinished dreams. Caught in the light, dust falls but never makes a sound.

Kosovo – Present Day

HER THUMB SLIPPED
off the flint. The flame went out and the tomb went black. She flicked the lighter again, rubbing her finger raw before it relit.

Michael was still there.

What do you say to a dead man?
She’d been talking to him for weeks – interrogating, begging, cursing. And now he was here, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

‘I got one of the bad guys outside the cave, but there might be more. And the Americans.’

‘I thought you were dead,’ she whispered.

‘Greatly exaggerated, like the man said.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Still time, of course.’

All she could do was stare at him. ‘How –?’

‘How did I find you? Or how did I end up not dead?’

‘How are we going to get out of here?’

‘Always practical. That’s what I loved about you.’ He took her hand in his and crouched in front of her. ‘God, I missed you, Abby. I’m so sorry about … everything.’

His hand was cold, but his breath was warm on her cheek. Through the dirt and smoke that clung to him, she caught the faintest sniff of his real scent – strong and mellow, like whisky on a winter’s night. That, more than anything, convinced her he might be real.

‘There’s a hut in the next valley. Dragovi
ć
doesn’t know about it. I’ve been living there the last few days.’

She stared at him blankly. Joy, relief, gladness – those might all come later. For the moment, she felt hurt beyond all healing.

Michael put both hands on her cheeks and looked her in the eye.

‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

They left the tomb and hiked through the forest as fast as they could – Michael leading the way, Abby struggling to keep pace. The throb of the helicopter still shook the air, though the trees made it invisible. Every so often, short bursts of automatic weapon fire echoed up the valley.

‘That’s the Kosovo Police,’ said Michael. ‘Probably shooting at shadows. If they haven’t got Dragovi
ć
by now, he’ll be safe into Serbia.’

They crested the ridge, still in the trees, and started descending the far slope. She couldn’t hear the gunfire any more, though the helicopter hadn’t gone away. In fact, it seemed to be getting louder. It flew right over them, shaking water drops off the wet trees, then slowly faded away.

‘At last vee are alone,’ Michael said, in a mock French accent. It was a line he’d often used in Pristina, when friends had left the flat after a long evening’s drinking. Hearing it here made her stomach lurch.

They didn’t stop, but carried on down the valley. The sun
set
behind the clouds; the air grew cold. Just when Abby thought she couldn’t go another step, they came out in a clearing where a small stone hut stood between two large trees. Not much to look at, but it had a chimney and a solid roof, and that was enough for Abby.

Michael didn’t dare light a fire – the wood in the forest was soaked anyway. Abby huddled under a mouse-eaten blanket on a camp bed, while Michael heated a can of beans on a gas stove.

‘So tell me again why you aren’t dead.’

‘Had you fooled, did I?’ He saw the anger rising and backtracked. ‘Sorry – joke. I know it isn’t funny.’

If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she’d have hit him. ‘It’s not a game.’

‘No, it is not.’ He pulled a cork out of a wine bottle and poured liquid into a steel cup. It came out clear as poison, with a kick she could smell from across the room.

‘
Š
lijvovica
. Local moonshine. It’ll warm you up.’

She sipped it and wished she had a cigarette. The rough heat made her anger feel good.

‘Tell me everything,’ she ordered him. ‘Why were we at the villa? You knew it belonged to Dragovi
ć
.’

He hesitated. The only light in the room was the small blue flame on the stove, silhouetting him in the corner.

‘Tell me the truth,’ she warned. The
š
lijvovica
burned her throat, but it couldn’t touch her frozen core.

He turned towards her. ‘I knew it was his villa. I’d arranged to go there to hand over some things he wanted.’

‘From the tomb?’

‘Yes.’ He thought a moment. ‘I don’t know how much you found out, or figured out, but here’s the background. A patrol of American KFOR troops found that cave and wrote it up.
The
report came up to Pristina and landed on my desk. One of life’s happy coincidences.’

‘You made the connection with Dragovi
ć
?’

‘I knew he was doolally for the Romans. I’d been trying to get close to his organisation for a while.’

‘Close?’

‘A sting. Infiltrate his circles and bring him down.’ He held his head still. She thought he was staring at her, though his eyes were invisible in the darkness.

‘You weren’t working for him?’

‘Is that what they told you?’ He reached forward and put his hand on her arm, but she jerked it away. She wasn’t ready for that. ‘Christ, Abby. Is that what you thought I was?’

‘I thought you were dead.’

On the stove the pan bubbled and spat.

‘You know all about Dragovi
ć
, I suppose. He’s the most evil man in the Balkans, and that takes some doing.’

He fiddled with the knob of the stove, adjusting the heat.

‘You remember Irina?’

Abby nodded. To her, Irina had been a black-and-white photograph on a bookshelf in Michael’s flat – glossy hair, pale skin, dark eyes watching the room, like the missing person pictures taped to the railings of the government building in Pristina. She’d only asked Michael about the picture once, thinking she must be family.
She died in the war
, he’d said, and changed the conversation.

‘Irina was one of Dragovi
ć
’s victims during the ’99 war. I’m not going to tell you what he had done to her, but I’ve read the reports. You can probably use your imagination.’

And that did stall her anger. She knew all the stories. Whatever vile, cruel or inhuman torture men could devise, it had probably happened in Kosovo during the war. There’d
even
been rumours of prisoners herded across the border to Albania to have their organs harvested for sale to rich buyers in the West.

‘Dragovi
ć
is the reason I came back to the Balkans. When this find of Roman artefacts turned up, I thought I could use it to get to him. I baited the hook – and he bit.’

‘The Foreign Office thought you were corrupt.’

‘I had to go vigilante. You know how it is with MMA.’

MMA was
Monitor, Mentor and Advise
– the EULEX mission’s official role in post-independence Kosovo. It meant working alongside the local authorities, trying to prod and cajole them into some semblance of honest functioning. It was an uphill battle.

‘Half the Kosovo government report to Dragovi
ć
. MMA means they see everything. Anything that goes on paper or in an e-mail at headquarters, it’s on Dragovi
ć
’s desk before it’s reached the top floor. If I’d done this officially …’ He sighed. ‘I went off the reservation, Abby, and I took you with me, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that.’

‘Why did you get me involved?’

‘I wasn’t thinking straight. I knew EULEX were after me because they thought I was in bed with Dragovi
ć
. Fair enough. Dragovi
ć
’s people were sniffing around to see if I was on the level, so actually the internal investigation made it look better. But it was tough. I didn’t want EULEX bursting in on my meeting at the villa, just when I was starting to get somewhere. You know there’s nothing the EU people hate more than working a weekend. I thought if you came away with me, they’d decide it was nothing and leave us alone.’

He spooned the beans out on to the plate and handed it to her. ‘Only one plate. Sorry I’m not geared up for hosting.’

She pushed it away – she wasn’t hungry – but he held on. ‘When was the last time you ate?’

He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You need food. We don’t have much time.’

She took the plate. The moment the first spoonful went in, she realised she’d been ravenous.

‘Things went wrong.’ Michael sat back on a log, rocking back and forth. ‘It was never supposed to be dangerous. Dragovi
ć
was going to send his man – his name was Sloba – to pick up the artefacts, and that was it. You and I would have a nice weekend, and I’d be one step closer to Dragovi
ć
.’

‘It didn’t work out that way.’

‘Sloba was twitchy as hell from the start. He might have come with orders to kill me, I don’t know. When you came out on the pool terrace, he jumped to a conclusion.’

‘He threw you over the cliff,’ Abby reminded him.

‘Even Zoltán Dragovi
ć
needs to have his pool cleaned. There’s a small access gantry a few feet below the edge of the cliff. I landed on it.’

‘Lucky.’

‘By the time I’d got back up to the villa, Sloba had caught up with you. I …’ He broke off, staring deep into the darkness. ‘I killed him. It’s a hell of a thing. In the moment … Afterwards …’

A long silence. When he spoke again, some of the colour had returned to his voice.

‘I called an ambulance. Then I threw Sloba’s body over the cliff and made damn sure he missed the gantry. By then, I could see the ambulance coming down the drive. So I ran. Hardest thing I ever did, Abby, leaving you. Harder than killing a man.’

‘And the body? Jenny, your sister, she said it was you. Did she know?’

‘I never dreamed they’d think Sloba was me. You were in a coma and surrounded by police: I called Jenny because she was the only person I could trust. She said the local police wanted her to identify a body. I told her to do it. So much easier to avoid awkward questions if everyone thinks you’re dead.’

‘
Easier?
’ The hurt and shock and betrayal that had been smouldering inside her suddenly erupted in a flash of anger. ‘Easier to leave me thinking you were dead? Easier to have me stumbling around Europe wondering why people kept trying to kill me? Is that what you call easy?’

Michael put his head in his hands. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘I didn’t ask for any of this.’

‘I know. I owe you an apology – an explanation – so much.’ He lifted his head, searching for forgiveness. ‘Dragovi
ć
was after you. He knew something wasn’t right. The fact that Sloba’s body was missing, for starters. He might have heard rumours that I’d been seen: not much happens in this part of the world that he doesn’t hear about. And he guessed there was something I’d been holding back from him.’

He waited for her to respond. She knew she shouldn’t – she wasn’t nearly ready to give up her anger yet – but somehow she found herself saying: ‘The scroll?’

Michael’s eyes lit up. ‘You found it?’

‘I went to Trier. I saw Doctor Gruber.’

‘Did he decode it?’

‘Only a few words.’ She tried to remember, then realised with a start she didn’t have to. She patted her jeans pocket. The piece of paper Gruber had given her made a wad against her thigh, softened where rain had seeped into it.

She opened the paper, peeling apart the damp folds, and read the poem.
To reach the living, navigate the dead
. The words
resonated
strangely as she said them. She’d been navigating a world where Michael was dead; now here he was, living and breathing.

‘Do you know what it means?’

‘No idea,’ Michael said. ‘But I couldn’t bear the idea of something like that being lost for ever because I’d given it to Dragovi
ć
. And it was worth holding something back for a second pass. I found Doctor Gruber online and turned up on his doorstep. Even if I had to give away the scroll in the end, I wanted to make sure the information on it would survive. Whatever was in that tomb, it means something to Dragovi
ć
. He thinks there’s more to it.’

She passed him the plate and took another sip of the clear brandy. It burned her tongue, but at least it felt real.

‘So what do you want to do?’

‘I think Dragovi
ć
can be had. I don’t know what he wants, but he’s turned half of Europe upside down looking for it. He’s not thinking straight.’

That makes two of you
, Abby thought.

‘He’s breaking his own rules on getting involved: he’s left himself vulnerable. If we can get to it – whatever
it
is – before him …’

‘He’ll crush you.’

‘Not if we’re careful.’

We
. It was the second time he’d said it. It sounded so natural, almost inevitable.

‘
You
,’ she said firmly. ‘You already died once – and nearly killed me, too. If you want to go off on some revenge fantasy tilting at Dragovi
ć
, you’re on your own.’

Michael nodded. ‘Of course – I presumed – sorry. Where are you going to go?’

Such a mild question, but it stripped away the layers of
shock
and anger to leave nothing but raw terror.
Where am I going to go?
To a cold flat in Clapham that stank of a failed marriage? To a desk job in the Foreign Office – if they even let her back in the building after everything she’d been involved in?