Tom Knox - The Genesis Secret

Rob asked Christine directly: about her attitude to Islam. She explained that she admired aspects of it. Especially the muezzin.

'Really?' Rob said. 'All that wailing? I sometimes find it intrusive. I mean, I don't hate it, but still…sometimes…'

'I think it's moving. The cry of the soul, imploring God. You should listen more closely!'

They took the second turning past a final, silent Kurdish village. A few more kilometres, and they would see the shallow hills of Gobekli, silhouetted in the moonlight. The Land Rover rumbled as Christine took the ultimate curve. Rob didn't know what to expect at the dig, following the 'accident'. Police cars? Barriers? Nothing?

There was indeed a new barrier, set across the track. It said Police. And Keep Out. In Turkish, and English. Rob got out of the car and pushed the blue barrier aside. Christine drove on and parked.

The site was deserted. Rob felt serious relief. The only indication that the dig was now the scene of a suspicious death was a new tarpaulin, erected over the trench where Franz had been pushed-that and a sense of emptiness in the tented area. Lots of things had been taken away. The big table had been moved, or dismantled. This season's dig was definitely over.

Rob glanced at the stones. He'd wondered before what it would be like, standing amongst them at night. Now, quite unexpectedly, here he was. They were shadowy in their enclosures. The moon had fully risen and was casting white darkness across the scene. Rob had an odd desire to go down into the enclosures. Touch the megaliths. Rest his cheek against the coolness of the ancient stones. Run his fingers along the carvings. He'd wanted to do that, in fact, the very first time he'd seen them.

Christine walked up behind him. 'Everything OK?'

'Yes!'

'Come on then. Let's be quick. This place…rather scares me at night.'

Rob noticed that she was averting her gaze from the trench. The trench where Franz had been killed. He sensed how difficult this visit must be for her.

They walked swiftly over the rise. To the left was a blue plastic cabin: Franz's personal office. The door was freshly padlocked.

Christine sighed. 'Damn.'

Rob thought for a second. Then he jogged back to the Land Rover, opened the car's back door, and fumbled in the darkness. He returned with a tyre jack. The desert breeze was warm and the moonlight glinted on the padlock. He shoved the jack in the lock, twisted, and the padlock snapped open.

Inside, the cabin was small and pretty empty. Christine shone a torch around. A spare set of spectacles sat on an empty shelf. Some textbooks were haphazardly scattered on a desktop thick with dust. The police had taken almost everything.

Christine knelt down, then sighed again. 'They took the bloody locker.'

'Really?'

'It was hidden down here. By the little fridge. It's gone.'

Rob felt a keen disappointment. 'So that's that?' It was a wasted journey.

Christine looked deeply sad. 'Come on', she said. 'Let's go before someone sees us. We've already broken into a murder scene.'

Rob picked up the tyre jack. Again, as he walked to the car, past the shadowy pits, he felt that strange urge to go and touch the stones. To lie down next to them.

Christine opened the driver's door of the Land Rover. The interior light came on. Simultaneously, Rob opened the back doors to stow the jack. And immediately he saw it: the light was glinting on a shiny little notebook. Nestling on the back seat; black but expensive looking. He picked it up. Opening the cover, he saw the name Franz Breitner-in small, neat handwriting.

Rob paced around the car and leaned in through the passenger door to show Christine his find.

'Jesus!' she cried. 'That's it! That's Franz's notebook! That's what I was after. That's where he wrote…everything.'

Rob handed it over. Her face intent, Christine flicked through the pages, muttering: 'He wrote it all in here. I'd see him doing it. Secretly. This was his big secret. Well done!'

Rob climbed into the passenger seat. 'But what's it doing in your car?' As soon as he asked the question he felt a little stupid. The answer was obvious. It must have fallen out of Franz's pocket when Christine was driving him to hospital. Either that, or Franz knew he was dying, as he lay bleeding on the backseat, and took it out of his pocket and left it there. Deliberately. Knowing that Christine would find it.

Rob shook his head. He was turning into a conspiracy theorist. He had to get a grip. Reaching left, he slammed his door, making the car rattle.

'Whoops,' said Christine.

'Sorry.'

'Something fell.'

'What?'

'When you slammed the car door. Something fell out of the notebook.'

Christine was scrabbling on the floor of the foot well, running her hands this way and that beneath the pedals. Then she sat back, holding something in her fingers.

It was a dry stalk of grass. Rob stared at it. 'Why on earth would Franz preserve that?'

But Christine was gazing at the grass. Intently.

Christine drove even faster than usual back into town. On the outskirts, where the scruffy desert bumped into the first grey concrete apartment blocks, they saw a feeble attempt at a roadside cafe, with white plastic tables arrayed outside, and a few truck drivers drinking beer. The drivers were drinking with guilty expressions.

'Beer?' said Rob.

Christine glanced across. 'Good idea.'

She turned right and parked. The drivers stared over, as Christine climbed from the car and threaded her way to a table.

It was a warm evening; insects and flies were whirling around the bare bulbs strung outside the cafe. Rob ordered two Efes beers. They talked about Gobekli. Every so often a huge truck would thunder down the road, lights blazing, en route to Damascus or Riyadh or Beirut, drowning out their conversation and making the light bulbs shiver and kick. Christine flicked through the pages of the notebook. She was rapt, almost feverish. Rob sipped his warm beer from his scratchy glass and let her do her thing.

Now she was flicking this way and that. Unhappily. At length she chucked the book onto the table, and sighed. 'I don't know…It's a mess.'

Rob set down his beer. 'Sorry?'

'It's chaotic.' She tutted. 'Which is strange. Because Franz was not messy. He was scrupulous. 'Teutonic efficiency' he would call it. He was rigorous and exact. Always…always…' Her brown eyes clouded for a second. She reached firmly for her beer, drank a gulp and said, 'Take a look for yourself.'

Rob checked the early pages. 'Seems OK to me.'

'Here,' she said, pointing. 'Yes, it begins very neatly. Diagrams of the excavations. Microliths noted. But here…look…'

Rob flicked some more pages until she stopped him.

'See, from here it falls apart. The handwriting turns into a scrawl. And the drawings and little doodles…chaotic. And here. What are all these numbers?'

Rob looked closely. The writing was nearly all in German. The handwriting at first was very neat; but it did get scrawlier to the end. There was a list of numbers on the last page. Then a line about someone called Orra Keller. Rob remembered a girl he'd known in England called Orra. A Jewish girl. So who was this Orra Keller? He asked Christine; and she shrugged. He asked her about the numbers. She shrugged again-more emphatically. Rob noted there was also a drawing in the book: a scribbled sketch of a field, and some trees.

He handed the book back to Christine. 'What does the writing say? I don't know much German.'

'Well, most of it is illegible.' She opened the book towards the end. 'But he talks about wheat, here. And a river. Turning into more rivers. Here.'

'Wheat? But why?'

'God knows. And this drawing seems to be a map. I think. With mountains. It says mountains with a question mark. And rivers. Or maybe they are roads. It really is a mess.'