Taddeo Santoro knocked again on the Colonna room door. ‘Carmen!’ he called out more loudly. ‘Are you in there?’
To Carmen’s surprise, his arrival didn’t unnerve her so much as fill her with a perverse euphoria. Was this how Cesco felt whenever he got into one of his scrapes? she wondered. It would certainly explain his recklessness. She closed and replaced the scroll-holder in the safe, locked it back up. It was still only ten to the hour. She felt almost cheated. Perhaps she could bluff her way out, claim she’d come in early to set the room up. But there was nothing to be set up. And then the moment passed, and she was stuck.
Father Alberts now returned. She heard him and Taddeo greeting one another, the ritual kissing of the cheek. They wouldn’t be leaving now. The terrace doors were her only hope. She drew back the curtains, the better to study them. No alarm, at least. But they were triply secured: a standard old lock; bolts at top and bottom; and a steel locking bar. None of Lucia’s keys fitted, so she searched the desk’s drawers and found a likely-looking candidate. The light was better now that she’d opened the curtains. Her eye was caught by the stack of books on top of the safe – more precisely, by their familiar bright blue and yellow jackets. Four brand new copies of the twenty-eighth edition of Nestle–Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece – text of choice for scholars of the Greek New Testament everywhere, surely reference sources for the work here, and conclusive proof that this was no Philodemus scroll. What was more, the top one was bookmarked; and not near the beginning either, as you’d expect for the Gospel of St Mark, but beyond halfway.
Even with Taddeo and Alberts waiting impatiently outside, Carmen couldn’t help herself. She flipped the book open to its mark. Several passages were underlined or circled with different colours. The margins were heavily annotated in both Greek and Italian. Her eyes flickered to the heading. As suspected, not the Gospel of Mark after all. But her disappointment lasted only a flicker. For when she saw what it was instead, when she understood the possible ramifications, her head swam so dizzily that she had to take a moment to steady herself.
Another knock on the door. Louder now. Frustrated. Angry. She flipped forward through the pages and then backward, scanning the annotated ones. Enough! She had to leave. She closed and replaced the book, returned to the terrace doors. The key fitted and turned. The bolts were stiff enough that she had to wiggle them back and forth. She lifted the locking bar and slipped outside, holding the bar up with her index finger between the gap before trying to shut it quickly enough that it would drop back into its slot. It took her three goes to get it right.
She walked carefully along the terrace, doing her best not to crunch the pebbles of sharp grey gravel, or to let the sun cast her shadow on the sheeted French windows. Halfway along, she realised she’d forgotten to lock the terrace doors behind her. Too late now. She’d have to do it later, when she went back in to close the bolts. She reached the end without being noticed. Unfortunately, the terrace stopped here with a fat stone balustrade. She leaned out over it. The paved courtyard was so far below that it made her feel a little dizzy. And her only possible way onwards was a narrow ledge that ran along the side of the building, beneath a series of sash windows.
Carmen hesitated. But it was this or go back and admit what she’d done. It was this or her career. She climbed up onto the balustrade, reached a foot carefully down onto the ledge, then stood on it with her back to the wall and shuffled slowly along. Her toes began to tingle. With nothing to stop her from falling, and nothing to hold onto, it felt even higher than before. Breezy too. She tried not to look down or think of the slight misstep that could send her plunging. But her imagination wouldn’t be controlled. It played it again and again in her mind, the way she’d scream and flail, the wet thud as she hit the flagstones. She came to a frozen halt. Her heart began racing madly, making her head swim until she found herself swaying backward and forward, struggling to keep her balance.
When Dieter had roused Gunther from his bed that morning, the man had mewled like a two-year-old. When he’d sent him off to watch Conte’s studio, he’d moaned about there being no chance that any self-respecting photographer would go to work at such an ungodly hour. It was with a certain satisfaction, therefore, that Dieter parked his Audi alongside Gunther’s white van. ‘No chance, eh?’ he said.
‘Fine. You were right.’
‘And my bike?’
‘I never said it was yours,’ said Gunther, pointing across the piazza. ‘Only that it was a Harley.’
Dieter followed his finger across the cobbles of Rione Sanità. His heart gave a thump of recognition the moment he saw it, despite its new plates and the red flashes the bastard had added either side. Apart from anything else, he’d bought those black leather saddlebags himself at a specialist Berlin store. Dieter had hoped for much from this trip, but he’d never dreamed of getting his beloved bike back. ‘And Rossi?’ he asked.
‘I lost him.’
‘You lost him?’
‘He spotted me,’ said Gunther. ‘It was drive on or be made. He might even have checked for our tracker.’
Dieter nodded, too exultant for recrimination. Rossi and his bike. This promised to be a great day. But there was work still to be done. He looked around the piazza. It was a junction of three roads bordered by cobbled strips on which a few market traders had set up stalls, all surrounded by shops, offices and apartment buildings, into any of which Rossi might have gone. They could sit here watching the Harley, of course, but that was hardly Dieter’s style. Besides, that would mean having to snatch him once he came back out into the open, hardly ideal even without those three uniformed officers lounging against the bonnets of their squad cars outside what appeared to be a small police station, eating pastries and drinking from Styrofoam cups. No. Far better to find Rossi now.
Find him and finish this.
Standing out on the narrow ledge with her head swimming, Carmen closed her eyes. She thought through what would happen if she turned back. She’d have to knock on one of the French windows and ask to be let in. The full story would inevitably come out. Shame and disgrace would most certainly follow. Her academic aspirations would be in tatters before she’d even started.
No. She refused to countenance it. It was as simple as that.
At once, her heart rate settled back down. Her dizziness stopped. She opened her eyes again, breathed deeply, then edged further along the wall. The first window she came to was for a storage closet containing cleaning supplies. The second and third were both of frosted glass. As best she could remember, they were the men’s and women’s loos. No matter anyway. All three of them were locked. But the fourth was raised several inches, to allow in a little fresh air. She stood beside it and listened for a few moments. It sounded quiet inside, which made sense, for this part of the library was largely off limits to the public.
She risked a quick peek. It appeared to be a small staffroom, with a few chairs, a fridge and a coffee maker. And empty too, as best she could see. She tugged the window higher. No one shouted or came to check. She clambered through, tumbling inelegantly in her haste, banging her left knee hard. She picked herself up, lowered the window back down, hobbled to the door. It was silent outside. She slipped out into a corridor just as a stern-looking librarian came into view, carrying a heavy encyclopedia in both her arms. Carmen put on her best guileless expression and spread her hands. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I seem to be hopelessly lost. I’m looking for Rare Books & Manuscripts.’ The woman frowned but nodded along the passage. Carmen thanked her and set off limping, planning to blame her lateness on embarrassing stomach problems.
Luck was with her, however. Professor D’Agostino arrived just a few moments after she did, offering excuses of his own. She got lucky again when she went to unlock the Colonna room door, for they were so busy chattering among themselves that they didn’t notice the mortice was already unlocked. She let them in, apologised again, assured them she’d be there should they need anything at all, then took her place at the small round table outside, her adrenaline rush finally abating, allowing her to consider what she’d learned.
Not St Mark, as she and Cesco had thought, but passages from St Paul instead, including from his first letter to the Corinthians. And how on earth had that ended up in Herculaneum? Corinth was way across the Adriatic. But there was a simple explanation. St Paul had been a prolific correspondent. Such men had typically kept copies of their own letters to refer back to whenever they received replies. And he’d reputedly passed through Naples on his way to Rome, where he’d spent two years in prison, awaiting trial and execution. Easy enough, then, for copies to have been made. As to why the owners of the Villa would have wanted them, perhaps one or other had been curious about the new religion. Or perhaps it had been the Galilean connection. By remarkable coincidence, Nazareth was only a good walk away from Gadara, home of the infamous swine and birthplace of Philodemus, the Villa’s favourite philosopher.
‘You look pale. Is everything all right?’
She glanced up. Victor was wheeling his trolley down the aisle, returning Tertullian to his shelf. ‘I’m fine,’ she assured him.
‘A remarkable trick, that, of yours. To come in again, without first having left.’
She stared at him. He looked curious more than accusatory. ‘I did leave,’ she said, putting her hand to her stomach. ‘I needed the loo.’
‘Ah. I must have missed you.’
She watched him return the Tertullian to its place then push his trolley back up the aisle. Christ, what a mess! But there was little she could do other than hope he kept his suspicion to himself. She texted Cesco to let him know the scroll was safe, then returned to her contemplation of it. Not so dramatic as the Gospel of St Mark, perhaps, but potentially more consequential. St Paul had been the dominant figure of early Christianity, far more important than any one of the evangelists, second only to Jesus himself. He, rather than St Peter, had been the rock on which the Church was built. His writings had been fought over from the start and were still fiercely contested. His first letter to the Corinthians had been used to denounce homosexuality and reject women priests, despite the suspicion that the passages in question had been added later by other hands. This scroll would likely settle such disputes for ever. No wonder Lucia had been so insistent on making progress before news slipped out. No wonder Taddeo was so desperate for his excavation licence, in case there were other scrolls waiting to be found. And no wonder the Holy Inquisition had sent down one of its top men – for the nature and authority of the Catholic Church itself were very much at stake.