Rob raised a hand. ‘Officer Kiribali-’
‘Yes?’
‘Is there any particular reason you have come here to talk to us?’
The policeman wiped his feminine lips with a fresh corner of napkin. ‘I want you to leave. Both of you. Now.’
Christine was defiant. ‘Why?’
‘For your own sake. Because you are getting into things you do not understand. This is…’ Kiribali wafted a hand at the cliffs behind them, a gesture that took in the citadel, the two Corinthian columns at the top, the dark caves underneath. ‘This is such an ancient place. There are too many secrets here. Dark anxieties, which you cannot comprehend. The more you are involved, the more dangerous it will be.’
Christine shook her head. ‘I’m not going to be chased away.’
Kiribali scowled. ‘You are very foolish people. You are used to…to Starbucks and…laptops and…sofabeds. To comfortable lives. This is the ancient east. It is beyond your comprehension.’
‘But you said you may want to question us-’
‘You are not suspects!’ The detective was scowling. ‘I have no need for you.’
Christine was unabashed. ‘I’m sorry, but I’m not going to be ordered about. Not by you, not by anyone.’
Kiribali turned to Rob. ‘Then I must appeal to masculine logic. We know how women are…’
Christine sat up. ‘I want to know what’s in the vault. The museum!’
This outburst silenced the Turkish detective. An unusual and confused expression came over his face. Then his frown darkened. He glanced around as if he was expecting a friend to join them. But the café terrace was empty. Just a couple of fat besuited men were left, smoking shishas in a shady corner. They stared languidly at Rob, and smiled.
Kiribali stood up. Abruptly. He took some Turkish lire from a handsome leather wallet, and set the cash very carefully on the tablecloth. ‘I’ll say this quite clearly, so you understand. You were spotted breaking into the site, at Gobekli Tepe. Last week.’
Apprehension shivered through Rob. If Kiribali knew this, then they were in trouble.
The Turk went on. ‘I have friends in the Kurdish villages.’
Christine tried to explain. ‘We were just looking for-’
‘You were just looking for the Devil. A Jewess should know better.’
Kiribali said the word Jewess with such sibilance that Rob got the impression of a snake: hissing.
‘My forbearance…is not infinite. If you do not leave Sanliurfa by tomorrow you will find yourself in a Turkish prison cell. There you may discover that some of my colleagues in the judicial process of the Ataturk Republic do not share my humanitarian attitude to your wellbeing.’ He smiled at them in the most insincere way possible, and then he was gone, brushing past the fat pink roses, which nodded, and shed a few scarlet petals.
For a minute Rob and Christine sat there. Rob felt the imminence of trouble: he could almost hear warning klaxons going off. What were they getting into? It was a good journalistic story, but was it worth real danger? The train of thought led Rob, reflexively, back to Iraq. Now he was remembering the suicide bomber in Baghdad. He could still see the woman’s face. The bomber was a beautiful young woman, with dark long hair; and bright scarlet, lushly lipsticked lips. A suicide bomber in lipstick. And then she’d smiled at him, almost seductively: as she reached for her switch to kill them all.
Rob shuddered at the recollection. Yet this awful memory also gave him a kind of resolve: he’d had enough of being threatened. Of being chased away. Maybe this time he should stay, and get beyond the fears?
Christine was certainly undivided. ‘I’m not leaving.’
‘He will arrest us.’
‘For what? Driving at night?’
‘We broke into the dig.’
‘He can’t sling us in jail for that. It’s a total bluff.’
Rob demurred, ‘I’m really not so sure. I…dunno…’
‘But he’s so effete, surely? It’s just a game-’
‘Effete? Kiribali?’ Rob shook his head, firmly. ’No, he’s not that. I did a little research on him. Asked around. He’s respected, even feared. They say he’s an expert shot. He’s not a good enemy to have.’
‘But we can’t go yet. Not until I know more!’
‘You mean this vault thing? The museum? What was all that about?’
The waiter was hovering, expecting them to leave. But Christine ordered another two glasses of sweet, ruby-coloured cay. And then she said, ’The last line in the notebook. Cayonu Skulls, cf Orra Keller. You remember the Cayonu skulls?’
‘No,’ confessed Rob. ‘Tell me.’
‘Cayonu is another famous archaeological site. Almost as old as Gobekli. It’s about a hundred miles north. It’s where the pig was first domesticated.’
The waiter set two more glasses on the table and two silver spoons. Rob wondered if you could get tea-poisoning, from too much tea.
Christine continued, ‘Cayonu is being dug up by an American team. A few years ago they found a layer of skulls and dismembered skeletons under one of the central rooms of the site.’
‘Human skulls?’
Christine nodded. ‘And animal bones too. Tests also showed a lot of human blood had been spilt. The site is now called the Skull Chamber. Franz was fascinated by Cayonu.’
‘So?’
‘The evidence at Cayonu points to some kind of human sacrifice. This is controversial. Kurds do not want to think their ancestors were…blood-thirsty. None of us wants to think that! But most experts now believe the bones in the skull room are the residue of many human sacrifices. The people of Cayonu built their houses on foundations made out of bones, the bones of their own victims.’
‘Nice.’
Christine stirred some sugar into her tea. ‘Hence the final line in the book. The Edessa Vault.’
‘Sorry?’
‘That’s what the curators of Sanliurfa Museum use as a name for the most obscure archives in the museum, dedicated to pre-Islamic remains. That section is called the Edessa Vault.’
Rob grimaced. ‘Sorry Christine, you’re losing me.’
Christine elaborated. ‘Sanliurfa has had many many names. The Crusaders called it Edessa, like the Greeks. The Kurds call it Riha. The Arabs, al-Ruha. The city of prophets. Orra is another name. It’s a transliteration of the Greek name. So Edessa means Orra.’
‘And Keller?’
‘Is not a name!’ Christine smiled, triumphantly. ’It’s the German for cellar, basement, vault. Franz capitalized it because that’s what Germans do, they capitalize nouns.’
‘So…I think I see…’
‘When he wrote “Orra Keller” he basically meant the Edessa Vault. In the basement of the Urfa museum!’
Christine sat back. Rob leaned forward. ‘So he’s telling us that something is in the Edessa Vault. But didn’t we already know that?’
‘But why put it in the notebook? Unless he is reminding himself? About something special? And then…what does “cf” mean?’
‘Can find…er…can…’
‘It is from the Latin. Confer. Meaning compare or contrast. It’s an academic shorthand. Cf. He is saying compare the famous Cayonu Skulls with something in the museum vaults. But there is, or there was, nothing of significance down there. I went through the archives myself when I first came here. But remember,’ she wagged a finger, in a teacherly way, ‘Franz was digging up things at Gobekli, secretly, at night-just before he was murdered.’ Her face was flushed with excitement, and maybe even anger.
‘And you think he put his finds in there? In the pre-Islamic vaults?’
‘It’s an ideal place. The dustiest part of the museum basement, the furthest reach of the cellars. It’s secure, concealed and virtually forgotten.’