Niall Heston’s wrath was biblical. “Do you have any idea how stupid we look right now?” he shouted. “All up and down Fleet Street they must be pissing themselves laughing.”
“I wasn’t to know,” pleaded Jake, glancing around the café they’d taken refuge in.
“Wasn’t to know? Wasn’t to fucking know? You wouldn’t have thought that reading your copy yesterday. The way you were going on you’d have thought Noah’s bloody Ark was hidden down there. Have you ever heard of something called ‘tone’? You’re the man on the ground, Jake, you’re supposed to come to a level-headed judgement and appraise our readers accordingly. Not get carried away playing Indiana Jones and get us all wound up about an empty bloody room.”
Jake held his head in his hands as the rant crashed about him, telephone vibrating under the assault. He could picture Heston’s forehead at that moment: puce, veins pulsing.
“You know where your story went? Front page.”
Jake was agog. “What, you led on the dig?”
“Of course we didn’t lead on it. My Christ, you really do have the news sense of an anchovy. The column was our front-page picture. With the caption, ‘Could the lost relics of the crucifixion be buried here?’ Exclusive stamped all over it. God, we look like tits today.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jake in a small voice.
Heston sighed. “Right. When were you due back?”
“Next Monday.”
“Next Monday my arse. I’m pulling the plug. Day after tomorrow you’re here in London, understood? And then we’ll see whether you can atone for your sins, my lord.”
With that he was gone.
“That went well,” muttered Jake, his head bowed.
“In hindsight, there was never going to be anything there,” said Florence.
“So good of you to let me know.”
“The column was erected in Constantine’s own lifetime,” she went on. “But Life of Constantine was written after the emperor’s death.”
“But I’m sure my thesis is correct,” Jake said into a fist. “With Constantine gone Eusebius would’ve had a free hand to embellish accounts of the emperor’s reign with his own hidden messages. And his references to lightning and prophecy are too frequent to be coincidence. We were looking in the wrong place.”
“I’m not persuaded.”
“There are passages I haven’t even shown you yet,” said Jake, flicking through Life of Constantine. “Tell me this one isn’t about the Book of Thunder.”
Others were caught organizing conspiracies against him, God disclosing the plots by supernatural signs. Divine visions were displayed to him and provided him with foreknowledge of future events.
“Wow,” said Florence.
“And there’s a ditty in Book Four.” said Jake. “What does this sound like to you?”
By keeping the divine faith, I am made a partaker of the light of truth. Guided by the light of truth, I advance in the knowledge of the divine faith.
“Ok, ok,” she said. “You’ve made your point. But even if Eusebius did hide something in Istanbul, what chance do we have of finding it? Roman Constantinople is six feet under.” Jake glimpsed sudden fear in her eyes. “I can’t return empty-handed, it’s not an option.”
“Don’t you ever think about anyone else? What about me? If we don’t find anything in the next twenty-four hours I’m finished as a journalist. I’ll be back on the local press before you can shout ‘planning application’. I’ve already been ordered back to London to face the Gorgon.”
“They might not sack you,” she ventured. “You weren’t to know …” her voice trailed off. “Jake? Jake? What’s wrong?”
But the reporter was far away. “Gorgon,” he repeated. “Gorgon.”
“I don’t understand. What is it, Jake?”
The journalist snatched up Life of Constantine and flicked through the pages. “Something just occurred to me. Here it is – in Book Two. One of Constantine’s rivals is warning his soldiers not to attack the emperor’s sign.”
Knowing what divine and secret energy lay within the trophy by which Constantine’s army had learned to conquer, he urged his officers not to even let their eyes rest upon it. Its power was terrible, it was hostile, and they ought to avoid battle with it. They advanced to the attack with lifeless statues as their defence.
“The ‘divine and secret power’ is the Book of Thunder,” said Jake. “But doesn’t that bit about ‘not allowing their eyes to rest on the terrible power’ remind you of the Gorgon? Medusa turned everyone who looked at her to stone. Or ‘lifeless statues’ as Eusebius puts it.”
“Is there a Gorgon in Roman Istanbul?”
“There most definitely is.” Jake reached for the Rough Guide; a snake-haired head glared at them from its pages.
Florence looked up the location where the sculpture was to be found. “It’s hard to believe something so prosaic as an underground water cistern could be fascinating,” she read. “But combine Roman engineering with contemporary lighting and you get one of the city’s most impressive remains.”
“What do you think? Possibility?”
“It’s subtle,” Florence admitted. “But if your theory’s correct Eusebius would have needed to be discreet. His life would have depended on it.”
She read for a few moments longer and put down the book. “Wait – no, this can’t be it. The reservoir was built two centuries after Eusebius lived.”
But Jake took the Rough Guide back, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips.
“The ceiling of the cistern is supported by three hundred and thirty-six columns,” he read. “But the two Medusa heads supporting columns in the south-west corner are clearly relics from a far older building.”