Kevin Ashman - Mortuus Virgo

‘What do you mean?'

‘I had to make sure you are not in on this, whatever this is.’

‘You bastard,’ she said.

‘Had to be done,’ he answered, ‘Easiest way was to see if you was holding back any relevant information.’

‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘Do I pass?’

‘You do.’

She snatched the picture from his hands and returned to the coffee table.

In that case,’ she said, ‘Get me a magnifying glass,’ and after a moment’s pause added, ‘And another cup of tea.’

— -

‘First of all,’ she said poring over the picture, ‘The front of the coin is exactly as I thought; the face is definitely Phillip the Second of Macedonia and dates after 354BC.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘His face is very distinctive,’ she said ‘It looks like most images of him that are recorded at the time. The long straight nose is a family trait and the laurel wreath sitting around his head is typical of his image. In itself this is not enough but most coins of the time depict their king’s facing right, this one faces left.’

‘And?’

‘In 354 BC Phillip attacked Methone in the Aegean sea. During the battle an arrow smashed into his face and he suffered a lot of damage, including the loss of his right eye. Since that date any coinage depicted the left side of his face. His good side, so to speak.’

‘What about the script?’ he asked and spelt out the letters surrounding the head, ‘M…Y…R…T…A…L…E’

‘That is quite strange,’ she said, ‘As the coin postdates the battle, the name is out of sync.’

‘Why who is it?’

‘It is the name of his wife,’ she said ‘But it is all wrong. When he married her in 357 BC her name was indeed Myrtale but when Phillip’s horse won in the Olympic games a year later, she changed her name to Olympias in honour of the victory.’

‘Perhaps she still used it or he preferred it,’ said Brandon.

‘I wouldn’t have thought so, going back to an old name was seen as unlucky, and anyway, Alexander was born in the same year and it would have been an insult to him. No, this is one of the reasons I think this is a fake, the coin was minted by a different culture who perhaps got their names or dates wrong.’

‘Okay,’ said Phillip, ’What about the other side?’

She didn’t bother using the magnifying glass for this one, just picked up the sheet.

‘This is something altogether different,’ she said ‘And is wrong, wrong, wrong.’

‘How?’

‘Wrong country, wrong period, wrong culture.’

He looked at the picture on the coin. To him it looked like a crude attempt at a matchstick man, the type often drawn by young children in their first attempts at drawing. A large round head sat on two vertical thick lines depicting the body and legs, whilst the arms were held tight against the sides.

‘Go on.’

‘Where do I start?’ she asked, ‘This image is a symbol recognised by many different cultures across the world. It refers to an ideology shared by thousands of religions from Christianity to Catholicism and ranges from the dawn of time right up to modern day. It is Pagan in origin and represents the universe itself or more recently, an actual person or should I say, Deity.’

‘Who is it?’ he asked, ‘Do I know him?’

‘Not him, her. The image is called the Tyet’ she explained, ‘The original meaning is unknown though it probably undertook different variances throughout time. In particular it is associated with one of the greatest female deities of all time. Her name was Aset, and she lived about nine thousand years ago in the area now known as the Black Sea.’

‘I’ve never heard of her,’ he said.

‘I expect you have,’ she answered ‘But the more recent incarnation. You see, this design, the Tyet is also known as the Blood of Isis.

‘Isis, wasn’t she an Egyptian queen?’

‘Not quite, more a Goddess though she was based on a real person.’

‘And is there a link between Phillip and Isis?’

‘Not at all, there is almost a seven thousand year gap between them.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Nope, except, as I said, this coin seems to be no more than a few hundred years old. That would explain the mistakes but why anyone in the middle ages wanted to represent these ancient characters is beyond me. Actually, come to think of it, most of what we know now only came to light in the last hundred years or so. People in the middle ages would have known virtually nothing about ancient history.’

‘So we are no further forward then.’

‘No, sorry.’

‘Sod this,’ he said, ‘Come on I need some air.’ He stood up and led the way towards the door.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Victoria Station,’ he said, ‘Let’s see if there’s anything the police missed there.’

An hour later Brandon and India left the station managers office and descended a private staircase into a maintenance tunnel. They stood before a metal door as the manager fumbled with a set of keys.

‘It’s here somewhere,’ he said, ‘After the incident we had this door specially installed. Staff have to sign for the key now, here we go,’ He pulled the door towards him and stood to one side, ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you detective?’

‘No, we will be fine thanks.’

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘The tunnel is about two hundred yards on your left and the linesman’s room is a further one hundred yards along. You can’t miss it; there is still police tape over the door.’

‘It’s still sealed?’

‘Yes, you are the first people down there since the incident. You’ll need this.’ He retrieved another key off the ring, ‘And these.’ He picked up two torches from a side table and handed them over along with high visibility vests and safety helmets. ‘The side tunnel has no electricity,’ he explained.

‘Thanks,’ said Brandon, ‘We’ll probably be no longer than an hour.’

‘If you’re not back by then,’ said the manager, ‘We’ll send someone to get you. Don’t worry, you can’t get lost, the tunnels are blocked at the other end, have been since the forties.

‘Why?’

‘Wrong ground type,’ said the manager, ‘The engineers discovered a fault at the time and they had to be abandoned.’

They thanked the manager and started down the dimly lit tunnel carrying the torches. As soon as the door shut behind them Brandon discarded the jackets and helmets.

‘You really don’t like health and safety, do you?’ laughed India.

‘It’s the bloody principle,’ stated Brandon in frustration, ‘If they were there for us to pick up, then I would probably have used them, I just don’t like people telling me how to look after myself.’

Within a few minutes the entrance to the side tunnel loomed darkly on their left and they turned on their torches, the beams cutting through the darkness as they made their way to the linesman’s room. Suddenly Brandon stopped and held his hand up.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked India.

‘It’s open,’ he said and India aimed her torch past him onto the door sticking out into the passage.

‘I thought he said it was sealed?’

‘He did,’ he said, examining the door. Reaching across the full width was n industrial hasp, hinged at the end to drop over the looped staple fixed to the frame. A heavy duty padlock lay on the floor, one end of the shaft forced from the body. ‘It’s been forced,’ he said and entered the room closely followed by India.

They shone their torches around the small room. There was a mess table, a wooden locker and two benches. A crowbar lay in the dirt floor, obviously left by the person who had forced the door. A dozen or so cables fed trough the wall at head level and terminated in a large distribution cupboard, the doors hanging off the hinges.