Tom Knox: The Babylon rite

‘I can see why.’

‘But now suddenly he had some money, he bought a flash new car, he indulged himself in antiques. Bought a TV maybe bigger than Canada. And he gave me some cash, and also Hannah, and I’m told there is more cash coming, in the estate: but where did all that come from? And… another thing. He got so happy by the end, he was a changed man. He’d been depressed for a while but when he got back he was happier, more enthusiastic, like he really had discovered something. And then, right at the very end…’

The dark pub seemed to have become even darker. The atmosphere smokier, though no one was smoking. She leaned close, whispering. ‘Two weeks ago, almost the last time I saw him, he was anxious. Still happy, but anxious. Like he was being menaced, or chased. Or at least watched.’

Nina drank a quick half-pint of Tennants, then said, ‘He didn’t say much, at first. He was jokey. Offhand. But I’d had enough, and finally I confronted him. I said, “Dad, what is going on? You’ve got all this money, you went away, you seem different, moody, happy one minute, weird the next. Now you say there are people watching you.” And I badgered him. I wouldn’t take no for an answer. I insisted, and finally he said, “OK, it’s true, I have discovered a secret, an extraordinary truth, a revelation… but it must remain with me. Don’t go after this secret unless you want to die, unless you want to get yourself killed”… ’

‘He was drunk when he said this?’

‘A bit. Maybe. A wee bit, aye. But also quite coherent. He wasn’t rambling. And then soon after that he gets himself killed.’

Adam sat back. Nina finished her beer. She sought his gaze with her own.

‘So. Will you help me? Adam? Will you help me find the truth? The cops are divvies.’

‘How can I help you?’

‘Come with me to his flat. Find all his notes! He was a diligent note-taker. You know. ’Cause he was an author. Then we can see what he had found.’

‘Why do you need me? Surely you are his executors, you and Hannah?’

‘No. His wife is. Second wife. Mum died a decade back. Car accident. He remarried five years ago, some Irish woman. I’ve tried to like her but she’s — she’s just an idiot. Guess she’s got her own issues, but life is too short, I can’t be arsed. Besides, she thinks it’s suicide and she hates all this Facebook stuff. But she’s away tomorrow night: we can break in.’

‘ Break in? ’

‘And find the notes. You’re an investigative journalist. You must know how to do all this. Find the secret that can get you killed, that got my father killed. What do you think, Adam?’

Adam said nothing. He was trying to reconcile two conflicting thoughts. The first was: that this girl reminded him of Alicia. It was unmistakable: she had the same intelligence and vivacity mixed with the same damaged quality. Even the poetry quoting was similar. And anything that reminded Adam of Alicia was bad news, set off sirens in his mind, red lights strobing danger.

But against this was set another, opposing desire: to learn more, to get the truth, to be a journalist. Everything in his training was telling him: This is it: this is a Real Story. Adam was jobless and directionless, and if he wanted to make a living he could not afford to turn down a cracking story when it was given to him like this.

He sipped the last of his beer. ‘Where did your father live?’

The Huacas, Zana, north Peru

‘Are you ready?’

Jess felt a trace of annoyance amidst her professional excitement. ‘Of course!’

They were standing at the entrance of Huaca D, the latest adobe pyramid of the Moche era to be opened by the TUMP team. She had a notebook in her hand. ‘So. Tell me again. How do we know this is an important tomb?’

Dan shrugged. ‘Various indications, such as grave goods in the outlying chamber. And the disarticulated skeletons.’

‘Sorry?’

He explained briskly. ‘The skeletons are slaves, or maybe concubines who were forced, during the funeral rituals, to have their limbs amputated, in a gesture of servility to the noble. Remember, we discussed the funeral sacrifices. They indicate the prominence of the inhabitant of the tomb.’

Jess remembered as she scribbled, the ghastliness of the notion making her sway a little in the burning Sechura sun.

For once the clouds had parted and it was fiercely hot: out there beyond the huacas the villagers of Zana were tilling their fields, bending to cut the reeds of sugar cane, white towels of turbans on their heads to ward off the sun. Otherwise the landscape was empty. Drifting, and empty, and dying.

‘OK?’

She nodded. Dan smiled, and there was a definite but discreet warmth to his smile. The smile of a boyfriend. Jessica welcomed his discretion, and reticence: no one else in TUMP knew she and Dan were having a relationship — not yet. And Jessica wanted to keep it that way. Because she wasn’t sure what she felt yet. Dan very definitely wasn’t her normal type: she usually went for young bohemian guys, unshaven and unreliable, casual and sexy. Musicians and artists. She’d been quite promiscuous at university. But now suddenly she’d gone for the older man. Why? Maybe she was emotionally a late developer, even as she was professionally precocious: maybe she was finally filling the father-shaped hole in her heart. Wasn’t that what daughters who lost a dad at an early age were meant to do? Seek out the missing male security figure?

The wind was stifling, the sun relentless. Dan was sweating in the heat, showing damp sweat patches under the arms of his grubby T-shirt. Yet she still felt a stir of attraction: he was quite rugged in an older and scholarly way. And his expertise itself was attractive: a man doing something well. He was a very gifted archaeologist — quite famous in his field.

As if aware of her scrutiny, he looked up: ‘Do you not have a flashlight? You’ll need it in the tomb, Jess. If you want to see to take notes.’

‘I’ve got it. Don’t worry. I’ve got everything.’ She glanced behind her at the waiting huaca, the ancient pyramid of crumbling dust, and lifted her notebook. ‘Tell me again what we know for sure about the age. When does the tomb date from?’

‘From the very last gasp of Moche civilization. Eighth or ninth century, when they evolved into the Muchika. Essentially they’re the same people, same culture, same bizarre civilization, but with dwindling resources.’

Jess nodded and wrote in her notebook, then said, ‘How do we know there haven’t been any haqueros? Any graverobbers? How do we know the tomb is sealed?’

Dan didn’t answer, he was distractedly patting his pockets, apparently making sure he had some kit on his person. This was typical for Dan — the classic intellectual scientist, always elsewhere.

Jess took the time to gaze around at the strange town that had been her home for six months. In a part of the world singularly blessed with hideous towns, Zana, an hour’s drive south of Chiclayo, and even deeper into the Sechura Desert, was still a shocker.

The streets were mostly paved with mud, or mud and sewage. The houses were concrete or adobe hovels, painted dirty white or a hopelessly sour pastel. Most of the buildings were one storey, but they didn’t have proper roofs, just ugly amputated concrete pillars bristling with steel cables that pointed at the empty air, waiting for the day when the family got rich enough to afford a second storey. These amputated houses gave the city an odd appearance, as if some dreadful god of pre-Columbian Peru — the mysterious Decapitating Demon of the Moche — had come along and swept a chainsaw across the town, levelling the buildings, chopping off anything too ambitious.