“So who do you—oh, you think Angela could help us?”
Bronson nodded, somewhat reluctantly. His former wife was the only person he knew who had any connection with the world of antiquities, but he wasn’t sure how she would react if he approached her. Their separation had been less than amicable, but he hoped she’d regard this problem as an intellectual challenge and respond professionally.
“She might, I hope,” Bronson said. “I know Latin inscriptions on lumps of stone are well outside her field of expertise, but she’ll certainly know someone at the British Museum who could help. She knows some Latin herself, because she specializes in first-to third-century European pottery, but I think we need to talk to an expert.”
“So what? You’ll call her?”
“No. She probably wouldn’t answer if she saw my cell phone number on her phone. I’ll send her a couple of photographs in an e-mail. I hope she’ll be curious enough to open that.”
Bronson went up to his bedroom and returned with his laptop. He double-clicked the first image and angled the screen so that Mark could see it as well.
“We need to pick out two or three maximum,” he said, “and make sure they show the inscription clearly. How about this?”
“It’s a little blurred,” Mark said. “Try the next one.”
Within five minutes they’d selected two pictures, one taken from a few feet away and indicating the stone’s position in relation to the wall itself, and the second a close-up that showed the inscription in some detail.
“They should be fine,” Mark said, as Bronson composed a short e-mail to his ex-wife, explaining where the stone was and how they’d found it.
“It’ll take her a while to reply,” Bronson guessed.
But he was wrong. Just more than an hour later, his Sony emitted a musical double-tone indicating that an e-mail had been received. It wasn’t from Angela, but from a man named Jeremy Goldman, and was a couple of pages in length.
“Listen to this,” Bronson said. “As soon as she saw the pictures, Angela sent them off to a colleague—an ancient-language specialist named Jeremy Goldman. He’s supplied a translation of the Latin, but it’s exactly the same as we’d already worked out: ‘Here lie the liars.’ ”
“So that was pretty much a waste of time,” Mark commented.
“No, it’s not. He’s also given us some information about where the stone may have come from. First, he looked at the inscription itself. He doesn’t know what the ‘liars’ were, but he’s suggested the word might have referred to books or texts, something like that, some documents that whoever carved the inscription believed were false.
“He doesn’t think the text refers to a grave, because it’s the wrong verb. He thinks it just means something that’s been hidden or secreted somewhere. The letters, he says, were fairly crudely carved and their form suggests that the inscription is very old, maybe dating from as early as the first century A.D.
“He’s also looked at the shape of the stone, and again it doesn’t fit with a grave marker. He thinks it might have been part of a wall, and he suggests that in its original location there would have been one or more inscribed stones below it, and those would probably have displayed a map showing the location of whatever the inscription referred to.
“He finishes up by saying that as a curiosity the stone is interesting, but it has no intrinsic value. He guesses that when this house was being erected, the builders found the stone and decided to incorporate it in the wall as a kind of feature. And then, over the years, tastes changed and the wall was plastered over.”
“Well, I suppose that’s helpful,” Mark acknowledged, “but it doesn’t get us very much further, and we still don’t know why these ‘burglars’ have been breaking in.”
“Oh, I think we do,” Bronson said. “Whatever those three words refer to, someone, somewhere, is very concerned that they should remain hidden, otherwise why would they replaster the wall? And that person obviously knows exactly what these ‘liars’ are, and is desperate to find their hiding place. They’re after the missing bit of the inscription, the map or whatever that shows where the relics were hidden.”
“So what should we do now?” Mark asked.
“That, I think, is fairly obvious. We find the missing stone before the burglars come back.”
II
Joseph Cardinal Vertutti’s caffeine intake was rising rapidly. Yet again he’d been summoned by Mandino, and yet again they’d met in a busy pavement cafe’, this time on Piazza Cavour, not far from the Vatican. As usual, Mandino was accompanied by two young bodyguards, and this time, Vertutti hoped, he’d have some good news.
“Have your men found the rest of the stone?” he asked, more in hope than expectation.
Mandino shook his head. “No. There was a problem,” he said, but didn’t seem inclined to elaborate.
“So what now?”
“This matter is occupying more and more of my time, Cardinal, as well as incurring significant expenses. I’m aware that we’re contracted to resolve this problem on behalf of your employer, but I need to make you aware that I’m expecting these expenses to be met by you.”
“What? You’re expecting the Vatican”—Vertutti lowered his voice as he said the word—“to pay you?”
Mandino nodded. “Exactly. I anticipate our total expenses will be in the region of one hundred thousand euros. Perhaps you could make arrangements to have that sum ready to transfer to us once we’ve sorted out this matter. I’ll advise you of the account details in due course.”
“I will do no such thing,” Vertutti spluttered. “I have no access to funds of that size and, even if I had, I wouldn’t contemplate transferring a single euro to you.”
Mandino looked at him without expression. “I was rather expecting that reaction from you, Cardinal. Put simply, you’re in no position to argue. If you don’t agree to meet these modest expenses, I may decide that the interests of my organization would be better served by not destroying the relic or handing it over to you. Perhaps making our findings public would be the optimum solution. Pierro is very interested in what we’ve found so far, and he believes his academic career would be greatly enhanced if he could discover this object and submit it to scientific scrutiny. But, of course, ultimately it’s your choice.”
“I think that’s called blackmail, Mandino.”
“You can call it anything you like, Eminence, but don’t forget who you’re dealing with. My organization is incurring necessary expenses in carrying out this operation on your behalf. It seems only reasonable that you should meet them. If you decide not to, then as far as I’m concerned our contractual obligation to you is at an end, and we would then be free to do whatever we thought most appropriate with anything we manage to recover. And don’t forget that I’m no friend of the Church. Whatever happens to this relic wouldn’t bother me.”
Vertutti glowered at him, but both men knew he had no choice, no choice at all.
“Very well,” Vertutti grated. “I’ll see if I can arrange something.”
“Excellent.” Mandino beamed. “I knew you’d see things my way eventually. I’ll let you know as soon as we’ve resolved the situation in Ponticelli.”
III
“Jeremy Goldman’s pretty sharp,” Bronson said. He was rereading the e-mail and had only just realized the significance of another of Goldman’s suggestions.
“In what way?” Mark asked.
“He spotted something else about the inscribed stone. He says that the Latin text is centered on the stone left and right, but not vertically. The words are closer to the base of the stone than they are to the top. And that could mean that the stone isn’t complete, that someone’s cut away the lower section of it. Let’s go and take a look.”