“There’s something utterly vulgar about flying sober,” said Jake, downing the dregs of his glass. “Whereas the gin and tonic harks back to the golden age of travel.”
Despite herself, Florence laughed. She had made it clear a Heathrow chain pub was beneath her, but when it came to matters alcohol Jake would not be gainsaid. As he headed to the bar to buy more drinks, Florence realized she was making eye contact with a slight Chinese man. She turned away.
Jake watched her pore over Britton’s package as he waited to be served. She wore hiking boots and a fleece top with no make-up, and her hair was pinned up in carefree fashion with a wooden chopstick-type thing. His heart screeched with desire.
The reporter set drinks on the table. “I’ve been going through the bundle chronologically,” he said. “Britton was completely obsessed with lightning. For example, he underlined a bit about Hostilius, the second king of Rome, who was supposedly killed by a lightning bolt for rejecting the Gods. I didn’t know Rome even had kings.”
“Oh, it did, way back when,” said Florence. “Actually, when Rome was a backwater it was ruled by Etruscan monarchs for a while. Then the revolution came.”
Jake extracted a page from the bundle. “Here’s another quote he’s underlined, from Pliny this time. Etruscan lands were supposedly laid waste by some character called Olta – and hey presto, Olta got bumped off by lightning too.”
Florence waved a hand. “Like I told you, Britton lost the plot. Anyway, death by lightning from the Gods is one of the oldest and most worn-out archetypes imaginable.”
“I know, I know,” said Jake. “It’s just a coincidence given –”
Florence silenced him with a look and began examining the plan of the Agya Sophia. The profusion of domes and buttresses resembled the blueprint of some extraterrestrial microchip.
“Is this the only diagram he left you?” she asked.
“Afraid so.”
“God, he was a suspicious sod. He’s made almost no notes on the diagram at all – I’ve got nothing to go on.” Florence sipped her cocktail, gagged and spat into a tissue. “What the hell is that doing in there?”
He laughed. “It’s only a blackberry.”
“I’m very allergic,” she replied, pushing away her glass.
Jake had an eye on the discarded drink as he asked, “What are you actually looking for out there?”
“A brontoscopic calendar. It gave a prediction in the event of lightning on each day of the year. The longest passage of the Book of Thunder yet discovered is a brontoscopic calendar.” She passed him a translation. “Pick a day at random.”
“June 16th,” read Jake. “ ‘If it should thunder, it threatens not only dearth of food but war, while a prosperous man shall disappear from public life.’ But surely it thunders somewhere every day of the year?”
“This calendar only applies for northern Italy,” said Florence. “If you bought into this stuff, a unique calendar would be needed for each location.”
Jake produced a notepad. “Do you mind? This is good background.”
Florence assented. “There are plenty of theories about why the Etruscans went in for lightning prophecy in such a big way,” she said. “The beginning of Etruscan religion coincided with a period of increased activity from the sun, which affected the earth’s electrical field. That meant worse weather, more rainfall – and some spectacular storms.”
Jake scanned through the calendar. “There’s loads about farming here. Crops, animals, diseases …”
“Understandably,” said Florence. “The Etruscans were totally dependant on the land and the seasons, so they obsessed over a good harvest. But there’s geopolitics too. Listen to the 12th of March: ‘If it thunders a powerful man in politics will be overthrown. On his behalf battles will be waged.’”
Jake chuckled. “Beware the Ides of March! I wonder, was lightning spotted in Tuscany before Julius Caesar’s assassination?”
“I hadn’t thought of that – and Caesar is said to have ignored the warning of an Etruscan soothsayer before he was killed.”
Jake wasn’t listening. “Fascinating document,” he said. “What’s the Istanbul connection?”
“The text that survives was written there in 600 AD, when Constantinople was part of the Byzantine Empire. It was translated by a scribe called John the Lydian from a lost original. By then Etruscan civilization had been dead for centuries, but Britton was looking for John the Lydian’s source material, the Etruscan master-document he translated into Byzantine Greek.”
“If you already have this Byzantine translation, what’s the point?”
“The Byzantine Empire was fanatically Christian,” said Florence. “By sixth-century standards John the Lydian’s material was seriously risqué. Britton reasoned he may have watered down the original calendar, because this translation’s very sparse. As a matter of fact, we know Etruscan thunder prophecies depended on much more than the date alone. They looked at the colour and shape of the lightning, whether it struck the ground, if it damaged anything – and crucially, where it originated. Lightning from the north-east was a favourable omen, but lightning from the north-west was very bad news.”
“Why look in the Agya Sophia?” asked Jake.
“Britton thought John the Lydian’s grave might be there somewhere. If the scribe had a penchant for the Disciplina Etrusca, perhaps a line or two was buried with him. But the Agya Sophia was the largest enclosed space on earth for a millennium. There are acres of wall, hundreds of chambers and vaults, and all Britton’s left us is this” – she stirred the pile – “a load of nonsense about ancient Rome.”
“What’s the plan then?” asked Jake. “You can hardly start knocking down walls.”
“Of course not, it’s a reconnaissance mission. To damage the fabric, in Turkey? You don’t want to even think about the bureaucracy. If we can work out where his tomb is hidden, then the paperwork begins.”
Jake grimaced. Niall Heston would not consider the write-up of a gentle academic potter “shit-hot copy”, and the chances of finding anything looked remote. Would he have a job this time next year? If so, his instinct that there was more to Britton’s downfall than met the eye needed to be spot on.
“Did you ever think there might be a good reason why Britton was suspicious?” he ventured. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you and all that.”
Florence studied him. “Why do you ask?”
Jake handed her Britton’s final note. “He thought something was going to happen to him.”
“He was mad,” she whispered. “Brilliant, but mad.”