The Exodus Quest (19 page)

THIRTY-THREE

I

The metal door of the interview room squealed on its hinges as Farooq backed in, carrying a tray with two cups of coffee, a pad of paper and a tape recorder that he set down on the table. ‘I hear you’ve been making quite a nuisance of yourself,’ he said.

‘My friend’s been taken hostage,’ said Knox. ‘She’s sending me a message.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Farooq. ‘This famous message of yours. My colleagues have been discussing it all morning.’

‘You have to tell the investigating team. It could be important.’

‘Tell them what, exactly? That you think she’s trying to send you a message, but you don’t know what it is? What use is that?’

‘Let me out of here. I’ll find out what it is.’

‘Sure. I’ll let all our killers out, shall I? They can help you look.’

‘Please. I’m begging you. At least notify the people running the kidnap investigation—’

‘Mister Knox. Calm down. One of my colleagues has already contacted Assiut, I assure you. They’ll call back if they want to know more. They haven’t yet. I doubt they will. But if they do, I’ll let you know. You have my word. Now, can we please concentrate on the matter in hand?’

‘The matter in hand?’

Farooq rolled his eyes. ‘Last night I warned you I intended to charge you with the murder of Omar Tawfiq. Or have you forgotten?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then. Has your memory returned yet? Are you prepared to tell us what truly happened? Why you drove into that ditch?’

‘I didn’t drive into it.’

‘Yes, you did. And I want to know why.’ He leaned forwards a fraction, a look in his eye almost like greed. ‘There’s something on Peterson’s site, isn’t there?’

Knox hesitated. Under other circumstances, he’d have resisted Farooq’s clumsy efforts to make him incriminate himself. But Gaille was in danger, and she needed his help. And the key to her message lay in the mosaic on Peterson’s site. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There is.’

‘I knew it!’ exulted Farooq, clenching a fist. ‘I knew it! What is it?’

‘An underground network. Chambers, corridors, catacombs.’

‘And that’s why you drove Omar into the ditch, isn’t it?’

‘I didn’t drive Omar into the ditch.’

‘Sure!’ scoffed Farooq. He grabbed his pen. ‘Right, then. Tell me how to find this thing. Believe me, it’ll go easier with you if you cooperate.’

‘I’ll do better than that,’ said Knox, with as much assurance as he could muster. ‘Take me out there and I’ll show you.’

II

Augustin got little joy at the police station. No visits allowed for Knox; even after an offer of
baksheesh
. In interview, apparently. Come back in an hour. He went out onto the station steps, fretful, feeling the need to do something – anything – that might help. A clear blue sky, the sun still too low to offer much warmth. He rubbed his cheeks, massaged his temples, his mind leaden and fuzzy. Sometimes, in the middle of conversations, he’d start slurring slightly for no reason whatsoever. He’d stop speaking at once, limit himself to grunts and nods. People thought him rude.

Perhaps Kostas would know something. Knox had been arrested at his apartment, after all. He got onto his bike, sped through the morning traffic, parked down a narrow alley, hurried up the front steps. The elderly Greek grimaced at the sight of him, the smell of whisky on his breath.

‘Last night’s,’ grunted Augustin, as he went inside.

‘If you say so.’

‘You’ve heard about Knox?’

Kostas nodded. ‘They arrested him here, you know,’ he said, his hands trembling, his eyes watery. ‘It was awful. Is it true what they said about Omar?’

‘That he’s dead, yes. That Knox was responsible, no. Listen, I don’t have much time. I need to know what you and Knox talked about.’

‘All kinds of things. The Therapeutae. The Carpocratians.’

‘The Carpocratians?’ A bell rang distantly in Augustin’s mind. ‘What about them?’

‘Among other things, that they used to identify each other by tattooing the lobes of their right ears.’

‘Ah!’

‘Quite. That was Knox’s reaction too. He asked me why biblical archaeologists might be hunting them down. That’s when those policemen arrived. I think I’ve found the answer, though.’

‘And?’

‘They were quite the aesthetes, the Carpocratians. They didn’t just admire the philosophy of people like Plato, Aristotle and Pythagoras, they decorated their temples with their portraits and busts.’

‘So?’ frowned Augustin. ‘Why would a biblical archaeologist be interested in a bust of Plato or Pythagoras?’

‘Oh, no,’ chuckled Kostas. ‘You misunderstand me. Not a bust. A painting. And not of Plato or Pythagoras.’

‘Then who?’

‘According to our ancient sources, the Carpocratians possessed the only portrait ever made of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’

III

‘Tell us about him,’ said Lily.

‘About who?’ asked Gaille.

‘This friend of yours. Daniel Knox, wasn’t it? The one who’s going to save us.’

‘Oh, him,’ said Gaille.

‘Yes,’ agreed Lily dryly. ‘Him.’

Gaille swept her hair back from her brow, held it there in a bunch. ‘He’s just this guy I work with, that’s all. But he has a knack of making things happen, you know.’

‘A knack,’ said Stafford. ‘Oh, good.’

‘I can’t explain it better. But if anyone can find us, he will.’

‘Are you two … ?’ asked Lily.

‘No.’ She sensed how thin that sounded, so she added: ‘It’s complex. We have history.’

‘Please, Gaille.’

She sighed. ‘My father meant a great deal to me when I was young. He meant
everything
. All I ever wanted was to please him. I became an Egyptologist because that’s what he was, because it meant I could go away on excavation with him. That’s when I first came on excavation at Amarna, even though I was still at school at the time. Then he started a new dig in Mallawi, just across the river from here. I was to be his assistant. But he postponed at the last minute, so that it didn’t get underway until after my school term had started, and I couldn’t go with him. Then I found out that he’d taken this man Daniel Knox in my place.’ She took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, my father was … that’s to say, he preferred men to women.’

‘Ah.’

‘So I got the wrong idea about all this. I thought he’d put me off because he’d fallen for Knox; or, rather, because Knox had
wormed
his way into his affection, you know. But it wasn’t like that at all. Apart from anything else, Knox isn’t like that. My father tried over and over to explain, but I’d already turned my back on him by then; I wouldn’t listen. It felt too good being angry, you know? It felt
righteous
. But time passed. I grew up. I got over myself. I began to realize how badly I missed my father. I was just about ready to swallow my pride and mend fences when I got the letter. An accident. A climbing accident.’

‘Oh, Gaille,’ said Lily. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘It shouldn’t have meant anything. He’d already been out of my life for years, after all. But it wasn’t like that. It knocked me all over the place. I did all the usual stupid things. I slept with everybody. I slept with nobody. I drank. I took drugs. It took me ages to pull myself together. And my anger was one of the things that helped me get through it. Not anger at my father. At Knox. Being my father’s assistant had always been
my
job, you see. It should have been
me
out there with my father on that climbing trip.
I’d
have saved him. So it followed logically that Knox had killed him. He gave me a focus of blame, you know, so that I wouldn’t have to blame myself. Christ, I used to hate him.’ She shook her head ruefully, struggling to believe how violent her passion had been. ‘I mean, I
really
used to hate him.’

‘You obviously don’t hate him any more,’ observed Lily. ‘What happened?’

The question took Gaille by surprise. She had to consider it for a moment. When she realized the answer, it made her laugh out loud. ‘I met him,’ she said.

THIRTY-FOUR

I

Farooq kept his hand firmly on Knox’s shoulder as he steered him through the station, more to show the world who was boss than from any fear he might run. They climbed into the back of the police car together, Hosni taking the wheel. Knox stared out through the window as they left Alexandria behind, drove west then south on the low causeway across Lake Mariut. He’d hoped the drive would jog his memory, but nothing came. His uneasiness grew. Farooq wasn’t a man to mess with. Beside him, as if sensing this, Farooq folded his arms and looked out of the other window, distancing himself from Knox, preparing to blame him if the trip proved a fiasco.

They turned down a lane, crossed an irrigation channel. Two uniformed security men were playing backgammon. A shudder of
déjà vu
, gone almost before he was aware of it. The guard took their names and business, called in, waved them through. They bumped their way along a track and over a small ridge, coasted down the other side to the offices, parking next to a white pick-up.

Farooq grabbed Knox’s collar as if he was a mischievous dog as he pulled him out of the back. ‘Well?’ he asked.

Several young excavators appeared on the brow of a ridge, sniggering at the way Farooq was manhandling Knox. But then a man in a dog collar strode over the ridge and all humour instantly fled their faces, as though amusement were frivolous, and frivolity a sin. Peterson. It had to be. But though Knox thought he had the broad look of his balcony assailant, he couldn’t be sure.

He strode over, looking Knox up and down with disdain but no obvious anxiety. ‘Detective Inspector,’ he said. ‘You again.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Farooq. ‘Me again.’

‘What brings you back?’

Farooq threw Knox a glance. ‘You remember Mister Daniel Knox?’

‘I saved his life. You think I’m likely to forget?’

‘He says you’ve found something here. An underground antiquity.’

‘That’s ridiculous. I’d know if we had.’

‘Yes,’ said Farooq. ‘You would.’

‘This is the man who killed Omar Tawfiq,’ glared Peterson. ‘He’d say anything to shift the blame.’

‘His claims should be easy enough to prove or disprove. Unless you have a problem with that?’

‘Only that it’s a waste of everyone’s time, Detective Inspector.’

‘Good.’ He turned to Knox. ‘Well, then?’

Knox had hoped just being here would trigger memories, but his mind remained frustratingly blank. He looked around, hoping for inspiration. Power-station towers. A cluster of industrial buildings. Two men laying pipe with a mechanical digger. The crescent of archaeologists, holding their rock-hammers and mattocks like weapons. They reminded him of a solid truth: there was an underground antiquity around here. These people had been getting in and out without being seen. Maybe they’d restricted themselves to after dark but … His eyes darted to the office, its canvas extension. Could that be hiding something? But his photographs had clearly shown the shaft out in the open, so unless they’d moved the office since yesterday … and they hadn’t, he could tell from the potholed track and this parking area, not to mention the converging footpaths in the …

The footpaths. Yes!

Walking back and forth day after day, they’d surely have worn a faint path by now. He looked around. Paths led away in all directions.

‘Well?’ asked Farooq, arms folded, his patience running thin.

A shudder of memory. After dark, running, his heart racing, slapping against a wire-mesh fence. There was such a fence away to his left, marking the power station’s grounds, and a thin footpath wending towards it. It was this or nothing. He nodded along it. ‘That way,’ he said.

II

Augustin walked down the front steps of Kostas’s building in something of a daze.
A portrait of Jesus
Christ
. So Peterson’s sermonizing wasn’t a metaphor. He was after the real thing. He straddled his bike, rocked it off its stand, intending to head back to the police station, but then he finally remembered why the Carpocratians had been familiar. He parked once more and strode angrily back inside. ‘The Secret Gospel of Mark!’ he cried, when Kostas answered his front door. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the Secret Gospel of Mark?’

‘Because there’s no such thing,’ replied Kostas.

‘What are you talking about? How can I have heard of it if it doesn’t exist?’

‘You’ve heard of unicorns, haven’t you?’

‘That’s not the same.’

‘It’s
exactly
the same,’ said Kostas. ‘The Secret Gospel is a fantasy, an invention of greed and malice. It never existed. It can’t possibly have anything to do with this.’

‘You don’t know that. Not for sure.’

‘I’ve dedicated my life to the truth,’ said Kostas angrily. ‘Forgeries are a cancer. Talking about them at all, even to dismiss them, gives them a legitimacy they don’t deserve.’

‘Even so,’ said Augustin. ‘You should have told me. Our friend’s in trouble. I need to know everything.’

Kostas’s scowl persisted for a few seconds, but then he sighed and relented. ‘Very well, then,’ he said, leading Augustin back through to his library. ‘How much do you know?’

‘Not much,’ shrugged Augustin. ‘Some American woman was over here a couple of years ago, researching a book on the evangelists. Maria, I think her name was.’

‘Oh, yes,’ nodded Kostas. ‘I remember her. Didn’t you and she … ?’

‘We went out a couple of times,’ he nodded. ‘She told me that Mark had actually written two gospels. One for the uneducated masses, the other only for his inner circle. This second one was called the Secret Gospel of Mark, and it contained arcane and controversial teachings, and it had something to do with the Carpocratians. But that’s all I’ve got.’

Kostas sighed. ‘First of all, there never was such a second gospel.’

‘So you say.’

‘Yes. So I say. The reason you’ve heard of it is because back in the nineteen fifties, a young American academic called Morton Smith was doing research in the Monastery of Mar Saba. He claimed to have found a letter copied out into the blank endpapers of a seventeenth-century volume of the letters of Saint Ignatius. That’s not so unusual. It was a common enough practice, what with the scarcity and value of paper. It was just that this letter was previously unknown, had purportedly been written by Clement of Alexandria, and had explosive subject-matter, all of which turned it into such a major find that it made Morton Smith’s name and career. What’s more, by a remarkable coincidence, it happened to validate a pet theory of his, for which there was precious little other evidence.’

‘How convenient.’

‘He wrote two books about it,’ nodded Kostas. ‘One for the general public, the other for experts.’

‘Like the Gospel of Mark itself.’

‘Exactly,’ agreed Kostas. ‘One of his little hoax jokes, no doubt.’

‘Hoax jokes?’

Kostas grimaced. ‘To academic historians, there’s all the difference in the world between a forgery and a hoax. Hoaxes are designed to show so-called experts up as gullible fools, and the perpetrator usually exposes them himself once he’s had his fun. But a forgery is designed to deceive
forever
, and to make money for its perpetrator too. The first is mischievous and intensely irritating, but at least it keeps people on their toes. The second is unforgivable. Which presents any potential hoaxer with quite a problem. What if his hoax is exposed by someone else before he can expose it himself, and he’s consequently denounced as a forger? He’ll be ruined, perhaps even prosecuted. So hoaxers often take precautions against this. For example, they might tell a trusted third party what they’re about to do, with instructions to reveal the truth on a specified day. Or they might incorporate telltale clues into their work. An anachronism of some kind, say, like the Roman soldier wearing a wristwatch in the movie. Not that obvious, naturally. But you get the idea.’

Augustin nodded. ‘And what you’re implying is, if someone wants to pull off a forgery, but is worried about being caught, there’s a lot to be said for putting in one or two of these clues so that they can laugh it off as a failed hoax if they’re rumbled?’

‘Exactly. And that’s precisely what Morton Smith did. He used a metaphor about salt, for example, that only makes sense with modern salt, not the rock crystal of Clement’s time. And Morton is, after all, about the world’s most famous brand of salt.’

‘That’s pretty tenuous.’

‘Yes, but then he didn’t want to be discovered, remember. He only wanted an alibi in case he was.’

‘And was he?’

Kostas shrugged. ‘Most academics immediately dismissed the letter as a forgery, but they were too kind or too timid to point the finger at Morton Smith. They claimed that it was most likely a seventeenth-or eighteenth-century forgery, though why anyone back then would have wanted to forge such a thing and just put it away in the shelves. … Anyway, even that won’t hold any more. Everything about the letter has been analysed with modern techniques. Handwriting, vocabulary, phraseology. Nothing stands up. There’s only one possible conclusion. It’s a modern forgery, and it was perpetrated by Morton Smith.’

Hard experience had taught Augustin that every time an academic controversy seemed settled, some new piece of evidence would come along to kick it all off again. But he kept his expression impassive; he needed Kostas to carry on talking. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘This letter is a contemptible scam. Now what exactly does it say?’