Claudia carried out her analysis and from that point onwards Cassius Gallio and Baruch were destined to start up this hill, the sun lunchtime high and the path at a serious angle. They will persevere, hands on knees as they struggle with the gradient, a challenging hike even in sensible shoes. They will overtake some stragglers and Gallio will recognise passengers from the coach tour. Who will soon overtake them back again, because unlike Gallio and Baruch they’ve trained on the rigours of the Camino.
‘What do we care if the disciples get killed?’ Baruch will stop to rest, doubled over, breathing heavily.
‘We don’t care. Not really.’ Gallio will also suffer, but he has recently returned from active duty. He will recover his breath more quickly. ‘The disciples are important because of what they tell us about Jesus. Three of them are dead. Something is happening, as if we’ve shaken their nest.’
Baruch will look up through the trees and groan.
‘We should have gone for Thomas before Paul,’ Gallio will say, ‘which I recommended. Then we might have learned something. If Jesus is with us, and if he can be found, we’ll trace him through his disciples. That’s my informed professional opinion.’
‘Not through Philip, though. Can’t wind up much more dead than Philip.’
‘No, but if they made a switch on the cross we’ll gradually get closer. Stands to reason. One of these disciples isn’t what he seems, and I have the feeling someone wants to stop us from closing in on Jesus.’
The next section of climbing means it will be easier for Baruch to agree than to argue. First, though, to delay the pain, he’ll find he has more to say. ‘We struck at the shepherd, now someone is rounding up the sheep. But if Jesus is alive we’ll find him, retry him, and kill him again. That’s nobody’s job but ours.’
As a former killer Baruch will forever insist on his right to be an expert about death. Death has been his life, and he’s confident that he can’t be surprised by any aspect of killing or dying. Jesus is dead, with no resurrection possible, and Jesus will remain dead because some surprises are impossible and all is well with the world. Or Jesus is alive because he never died, which is an utter scandal. Whoever is responsible will be punished, and if that means the disciples then so be it.
Cassius Gallio will ask Baruch whether he believes in an afterlife. Because he’ll pose the question on the uphill trek to Philip’s martyrium, Baruch will struggle both to walk and answer at the same time.
‘Unlikely.’ He’ll have to stop to make his point. ‘If there’s an afterlife I’d never have dared kill anybody. Too many unknown factors, including the threat of retribution after the event. A whole other world of trouble.’
‘Good.’ Cassius Gallio will squint into the sunshine and assess what’s left of the hill. Same as there ever was. ‘One last push. Come on, my friend, not far now.’
‘So who’s killing them?’ Baruch makes himself the centre of attention in the incident room because murder is his specialist subject, and everything else is garnish.
‘Someone who’s willing and able to travel,’ Claudia says, ‘if the killings are connected.’
‘How many people involved?’
Claudia glances at Valeria, and gets a nod so she carries on while Valeria looks inside a coffee cup: dregs but old and cold. Don’t read too much into it, Gallio thinks. The good stuff is not always in the past.
‘Maybe more than one person,’ Claudia says, ‘but not too many, because the killings are clean. With Thomas and now Philip they did a tidy job, leaving nothing behind we can use to construct a forensic link.’
‘In Babylon the crime scene was compromised,’ Valeria says. ‘They moved the body before you arrived. In Hierapolis we’ve managed to intervene in time, and they agreed not to cut Philip down, especially as for the moment he’s not putting off the tourists. The delay isn’t ideal. Might have been different if we had our own people on the ground.’
‘Or there may be no pattern at all. That’s also a possibility.’ Claudia is comfortable double-teaming with Valeria, as if they’ve worked together before. ‘Despite comparable levels of violence, Philip and Thomas were murdered in obviously different ways. Serial killers usually fall into habits that betray them, but not here, or not that I can see.’
‘So it wasn’t the same killer. That would explain the difference in method.’
‘I’ve dug up some grudges,’ Claudia says, ‘motives. Philip’s killing may be a local quarrel, specific to the Hierapolis region, and again it may not.’
She projects a PowerPoint slide onto a blank white space on the far wall. Baruch sighs dismissively and pulls out a chair, his body language announcing that everything was better in the old days, before Claudia and modern technology were born. She reads her list of Hierapolis suspects off the slides, clicking through a roster of potential assailants that the disciples of Jesus risk provoking wherever they stop to preach. Same for Philip as for Thomas — so connected, but also coincidental.
Along with local priests opposed to atheist upstarts, every ancient city has its share of rationalists, of undertakers, of embittered materialists who insist on tooth-and-claw mortality. In Hierapolis Philip had offended pimps and landowners, businessmen and local moneylenders who wanted no enlightenment beyond the laws of supply. He had truly aggrieved the parents of dead children, enraged by chatter about resurrection.
‘Stop talking,’ Baruch says. ‘Yak yak yak. You’re being too clever.’
Claudia ignores him. ‘And we shouldn’t forget that in both cases the disciples were survived by people on their own side who blamed Satan.’
Cassius Gallio coughs gently, throat dry from the flying, and finds he enjoys the way Claudia turns her young, pretty face towards him. Attractive, clever, both ways round. He holds up a plastic evidence bag. Inside is a splinter of wood about six inches long.
‘I found this in the flat Thomas was renting in Babylon. If we now have access to the labs I’d like it analysed.’
‘From here it looks like a piece of wood,’ Baruch says.
‘Hardwood. The floorboards in Babylon were pine. Indulge me.’
Claudia glances once more at Valeria. Valeria nods, interested in every lead. Gallio places the baggie on Claudia’s keyboard, where she won’t be able to ignore it, but Claudia hasn’t finished speaking. He studies her lips, her chin, the indent of her waist, her long hips. Cassius Gallio is not a good man. Really, he is not.
‘There’s another connection we need to consider,’ she says. ‘The murders of Thomas and Philip took place after the two of you started looking for Jesus.’
Baruch sees the implication an instant before Gallio, but Baruch spent his early life constructing alibis, even when he was innocent. ‘Are we suspects for murder?’
‘I don’t know.’ Claudia has the same hard edge as Valeria. Gallio took this long to notice it. ‘Are you?’
‘Of course they’re not,’ Valeria says. ‘They were flying back from Babylon when the news came through about Philip in Hierapolis. The point is not that you’re suspects. It’s that the search for Jesus may be connected to the killings. Maybe you’re right about the switch theory, and you’re closing in. We should keep pushing. Go to Hierapolis. Identify the body and learn what you can.’
‘Got anything else for us?’ Baruch is imagining the plane, the brace position, the landing on water — how is that even possible without a miracle? ‘We’re not going to find Jesus. He’s dead.’
‘We’ve told you what we know,’ Valeria says. ‘Though there’s one more thing. Philip has his own martyrium, to commemorate his selfless death. That’s where he was killed, so you’ll need to get your head round that.’