‘Big time,’ Costas murmured.
‘When it came down to it, in those last moments of hell in front of the crack of doom in the Phlegraean Fields, it may have felt right. Claudius may have shut his eyes, and in his mind seen only those statues we found in his room in the villa in Herculaneum, those images of his father and brother which must have been seared into his mind.’
‘Jack, I think you’ve found another soulmate,’ Costas said. ‘Move over Harald Hardrada, King of the Vikings, here comes Claudius, Emperor of Rome.’
‘I feel like I did on that little island north of Newfoundland, on our search for the Jewish menorah,’ Jack said, closing the book. ‘Harald had taken us on an extraordinary adventure in search of his treasure, farther than we could ever have dared imagine. I feel the same way now, but I feel Claudius has left us, has taken us as far as he can. I owe it to him to find the clues, to go where he wanted me to go. But I just can’t see a way ahead.’
‘Speaking of soulmates, here’s one of mine,’ Costas said, sniffing and gesturing blearily at the figure making his way along the row of seats towards them. ‘And maybe he’s got what you need.’
18
T he woman stumbled as they dragged her out of the car and pushed her over the irregular rocky surface. She was blindfolded, but she knew where they were. The smell had hit her as soon as they had opened the car door, the acrid waft of sulphur that made the tip of her tongue burn. She could sense the yawning space ahead, the warm updraught from the furnace in the pit of the earth. She knew the score. They would either do it here, or take her down below. She had been here many times before, as a girl, when they had tried to toughen her up. She had seen the terror, the pleading, the incontinence, and sometimes the serene composure, the acceptance of the old ways as they always had been, the futility of resistance.
A hand steered her to the left, and pushed her on, down a rocky path. So it would be below. They were taking no chances. The hand pulled her to a halt, and roughly undid her blindfold. She blinked hard, and stared into darkness. She sensed the bulk of Vesuvius over the bay behind her, but knew that if she turned for one last look she would be slapped down, and the blindfold put back on. She knew they had only removed it to make it easier for them to get her down the rocky path to the floor of the crater, but she hoped they would keep it off to the end. It was her only fear, that she should experience that moment in darkness, unable to distinguish between blindness and death.
She kept her eyes ahead, only looking down when she stumbled, her hands duct taped behind her. They reached the bottom. One set of footsteps remained behind, guarding. It was the usual drill. Once, long ago, that had been her job, when they had tried to suck her deeper into the family, before they had found another way for her to serve them. She remembered the interview, the shadowy man from Rome, the man she never saw and never spoke to again. Afterwards, there had been occasional phone calls, instructions, threats she knew to be real, the order that she take the job in Naples. Nothing for years, and then the earthquake, and the nightmare returned, the calls in the night, hissing demands, threats to her daughter, her world of scholarship and archaeology crashing down. She thought of earlier times when she had seemed free of it. She thought of Jack, of the lost years since they had forced her to leave him, of seeing him again two days ago and their fleeting words in the villa. There was something else she had wanted to tell him, but now only her daughter would know, three years from now when she came of age and would read the truth. It was all too late now. Then the other pair of footsteps resonated in the crater, pushing her forward. The hand halted her again, and the blindfold was yanked tight over her eyes. ‘No,’ she said fiercely in Italian. ‘Not this. Do you remember how much it frightened me when we were children? When I looked after you. My little brother.’
There was no response. The hands paused, then relented. The blindfold caught on the superintendency ID card still dangling around her neck, and it was pulled violently off. Her neck felt as if it had been whipped. She kept her eyes resolutely ahead, but caught sight of the fresh plaster cast on his wrist. ‘What happened to you, mia caro ?’ she said. There was no reply, and she was pushed ahead, this time violently, the hand against the bun of her hair. She stumbled forward. Fifty paces. Another twenty paces. A hand grasped her hair again, and a foot kicked behind her right knee. She collapsed on to the floor of the crater, her knees hitting the lava with a crack. The pain was shocking. She kept her composure, remained upright. Her legs were kicked apart. Something cold was pushed against the nape of her neck, sending a tingle down her spine. ‘Wait,’ she said, her voice strong, unwavering. ‘Release my hands. I must make my peace with God. In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti.’
For a few moments nothing happened. The muzzle was still pressed against her neck. She wondered if that was it, if it had already happened, if this was death, if death meant being frozen in the moment of passing. Then the muzzle was removed, she heard a sloshing metal can clatter on the ground, smelled the petrol, and felt the hands fumbling at her wrists. Her heart was beginning to beat faster now, pounding, and her knees felt weak. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, savouring it, even the sickly smell of this place. She would not let herself down. She would not let her family down. The family. She knew she should be thinking of something else, of those she truly loved, of her daughter, but she could not. She opened her eyes, and looked in front of her. The crack was there, pitch black, solidified lava around the edges. She knew what would happen next. The bark of the silenced Beretta, the jet of blood and brains, strangely self-contained, like water from a hose, pulsing out with the final heartbeats. The body pushed into the crack, the fuel can emptied over it, the tossed cigarette. She wished the crack itself would take her, come alive as it had when the volcano had throbbed like a living heart under this place, the seething core of the underworld. She wanted to be embraced by it. She wanted it to burn.
There was a tearing sound as the tape on her wrists came free, a jolt of pain as it was ripped off. She let her left hand fall, shook it, feeling the circulation return. She slowly raised her right hand in front of her breasts, made the sign of the cross, and touched her forehead. Her hand was firm, unshaking. She was pleased. She let it drop. Her eyes were wide open, staring into the crack. She moved her hands together, felt the delicate ring Jack’s grandmother had given her, an ancient treasure of his seafaring ancestors. She felt the muzzle press against the nape of her neck. She bowed her head slightly. The angle would be better. Quicker. She heard a cell phone chirp, and then a voice behind her, a voice that brought back the warmth of childhood, a voice that she had loved hearing in the mornings when she had stroked his forehead, seeing him waken.
‘Eminence? Va bene. Your will be done.’
The click of the pistol cocking.
Then nothing.
Costas sneezed, as he made space for Jeremy, who had arrived in St Paul’s Cathedral five minutes before but had spotted a church official and gone straight off to talk to him. Jeremy came down the aisle carrying a dripping umbrella and briefcase and wearing a red Goretex jacket. Costas and Jack had only just returned to their seats below the dome a few moments before, having made a quick dash to a pharmacy outside on the Strand. Costas was noisily snorting a decongestant and peering at the label on a bottle. He popped a small handful of pills, took a swig of water and leaned back to let Jeremy by, making space on the chair between him and Jack. Jeremy took off his coat, sat down, sniffed the air, removed his glasses to wipe away the rainwater, then sniffed again. He leaned towards Costas, then recoiled slightly. ‘Something smells bad around here.’