Contents
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Tom Harper
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Chapter XXXV
Chapter XXXVI
Chapter XXXVII
Chapter XXXVIII
Chapter XXXIX
Chapter XL
Chapter XLI
Chapter XLII
Chapter XLIII
Chapter XLIV
Chapter XLV
Chapter XLVI
Chapter XLVII
Historical Note
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Book
Some secrets should stay buried forever…
Abby Cormac spent ten years trying to put the world’s worst criminals behind bars. Burned out, she thinks she’s left it all behind – until a terrible act of violence shatters her life once more. In a luxurious villa on the Adriatic coast, her lover, Michael, is murdered and Abby is left for dead.
Terrified and alone, Abby vows to bring Michael’s killer to justice. But when her investigation takes her across Europe and in contact with one of the Balkans’ most notorious gangsters, she soon realises that Michael wasn’t the man she thought she knew. He had discovered a secret – a legacy of betrayal and murder hidden by a conspiracy of silence – and Abby’s convinced that unravelling this secret will lead her to the truth. But powerful enemies are watching her every move and they will stop at nothing to ensure the secrets of the dead never come to light…
About the Author
Tom Harper has written ten novels including Lost Temple, The Book of Secrets and The Lazarus Vault. He is a past Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, and his books have been translated into twenty languages worldwide. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons. For more information, visit www.tom-harper.co.uk
Also available by Tom Harper
The Mosaic of Shadows
Knights of the Cross
Siege of Heaven
Lost Temple
The Book of Secrets
The Lazarus Vault
For
Dusty and Nancy Rhodes
and
Patrick and Mary Thomas
IN MEMORIAM
Every man seeks peace by waging war,
but no man seeks war by making peace.
– St Augustine, City of God
The dead keep their secrets, and in a little
while we shall be as wise as they.
– Alexander Smith
I
Pristina, Kosovo – Present Day
ESCAPING WORK ON a Friday afternoon was still a luxury Abby hadn’t got used to.
For ten years, work had been long days in the dark places of the Earth, listening to shattered people relive brutality on an unimaginable scale. Then evenings at a laptop in rooms converted from shipping containers, freezing or baking with the seasons, wringing all the blood and tears out of the stories until they became dry pieces of paper that would make presentable evidence for the International Court in The Hague. She never escaped. She’d lost count of the nightmares, the times she’d found herself kneeling over the chemical toilet deep in the night, desperate to purge the things she’d seen. Among the casualties over the years had been several promising relationships, a marriage, and finally her ability to care. But always, next morning, straight back to work.
Now all that was history. She’d transferred to the EU mission in Kosovo – EULEX – teaching the Kosovars how to be model European citizens. There had been war crimes in Kosovo, true, but they were someone else’s problem. She worked with the civil courts, trying to unwind the tangled questions of who owned what after the war. The Lost Property Office, Michael called it. She didn’t mind being teased. She could sleep at night.
She folded up her files and locked them away. She cleared her desk for the cleaners to come in over the weekend. Shut down, turn off, leave behind. Just before she killed her computer, she noticed a new e-mail had come in from the Director. She ignored it – another luxury. She could deal with it on Monday. It was 2 p.m. on Friday and her week was over.
Michael’s car was waiting for her outside the office. A red Porsche convertible, vintage 1968, probably the only one in the Balkans. Top off, despite the thunder clouds massing over the city. Michael revved the engine as she stepped out the door, a full-throated roar that would have made her wince with embarrassment if she wasn’t so happy. Typical Michael. She slipped into the passenger seat and kissed him, feeling his salt-and-pepper stubble graze her cheek. A couple of people coming out of the office stopped to stare, and she wondered if they were looking at the car or at her. Michael was twenty years her senior and looked it, though age suited him. There were lines on his face, but they only accentuated what was good about it: the ready smile, the devil-may-care gleam in his eye, the confidence and strength. When his hair started greying he didn’t cut it, just added a gold earring. So as not to look too respectable, he said. Abby teased him that it made him look like a pirate.
He cupped her chin and turned her head so he could see her throat. ‘You’re wearing the necklace.’
He sounded pleased. He’d given it to her a week ago, an intricate golden labyrinth studded with five red glass beads. In the centre was a monogram, a form of the early Christian X-P symbol though she’d never known Michael be religious. The necklace itself felt ancient. The gold was dark and glossy like honey, the red glass misted with time. When she asked Michael where he got it, he just gave a crooked smile and told her a Gypsy gave it to him.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed her black overnight bag lying on the Porsche’s back seat, next to his briefcase.
‘Are we going somewhere?’
‘Kotor Bay. Montenegro.’
She made a face. ‘That’s six hours away.’
‘Not if I can help it.’ He pulled out of the parking lot, past the security guard in his blue blazer and baseball cap. The man gave the car an admiring stare and threw them a salute. Among the drab rows of EU-issue sedans, the Porsche stood out like some kind of endangered species.
Driving one-handed, Michael reached down and pulled a hipflask from beside the handbrake. His hand brushed her thigh where her sundress had ridden up. He took a swig, then handed it to her.
‘I promise it’ll be worth it.’
And maybe he was right. That was the thing with Michaeclass="underline" however wild his idea, you always wanted to believe him. As soon as they’d escaped Pristina’s gridlock, weaving in and out of the traffic in ways even the locals – comfortably the worst drivers in Europe – wouldn’t have dared, he punched the accelerator and gave the car its head. Abby snuggled into her seat and watched the miles fly by. Roof down, they raced ahead of the wind, outrunning the storm that always threatened but never touched them. Across the Kosovo plain and up into the foothills, towards the mountains that squeezed the setting sun against the sky until it bled crimson. At the Montenegrin border a few words from Michael sped them past the customs officials.