Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter VII

If I had had any sense I would still have convinced myself he was just bathing peacefully. We could have turned away without staring too closely, then a rapid stroll downhill would have taken us back to our lodging. We should have done that anyway; I should have kept us out of it.

He was almost submerged. His head was under water. Only something bulky, caught under his clothing, was holding him afloat.

We were both already running forwards. 'Unbelievable!' Helena marvelled bitterly as she scrambled down from the sacrificial platform. 'Just two days here, and look what you've found.'

I had reached the rock-formed tank ahead of her. I lowered myself over the edge into the water, trying to forget I couldn't swim. The water came above my waist. The chill made me gasp. It was a large cistern, about four feet deep: ample to drown in.

The swirl of water as I entered caused the body to move and start sinking. I managed to grab at the garments that had helped buoy him up. Arriving a few moments later, we could have avoided this trouble. He would have been lying out of sight on the bottom as the drowned do – assuming, of course, that drowning was the real cause of his death.

Slowly I pulled my burden to the side. An inflated goatskin floated out from under his tangled cloak as I manoeuvred him. Helena leant down and held his feet, then helped me haul him half out of the water. She had the nice manners of any senator's daughter, but no qualms about helping out in an emergency.

I climbed out again. We completed the operation. He was heavy, but together we managed to remove him from the cistern and flop him face down. Without more ado I turned his head sideways. I leaned on his ribs for a respectable period, trying to revive him. I noticed my first shove seemed to expel air rather than water. And there was none of the froth I had seen with other corpses who had drowned. We get plenty in the Tiber.

Helena waited, at first standing above me with the wind blowing her clothes against her body while she gazed thoughtfully around the high plateau. Then she walked to the far side of the cistern, examining the ground.

As I worked I was thinking things through. Helena and I had been climbing quite slowly, and our pause for recreation had taken up time. But for that, we would have arrived at the crucial moment. But for that, we would be sharing the fabulous windswept views with two men, both alive.

We had come too late for this one. I knew even before I started that my efforts would be useless. Still, I gave him the courtesy. I might need to be resuscitated by a stranger myself one day.

Eventually I rolled him over on his back and stood up again.

He was fortyish. Too fat and flabby. A wide, berry-brown face with a heavy chin and thuggish neck. The face looked mottled under its tan. Short arms; broad hands. He had not troubled himself with shaving today. Lank, rather long hair merged with coarse black eyebrows and dripped sluggishly on to the rock floor beneath him. He was dressed in a long, loose-weave brown tunic, with a more sun-bleached cloak tangled wetly around him. Shoes knotted on top of the foot, a toe-thong apiece. No weapon. Something bulky under his clothes at the waist, however – a writing tablet, not written on.

Helena held out something else she had found beside the cistern – a round-bottomed flask on a plaited leather cord. Its wicker casing, stained brown with wine, made me pull out the stopper: wine had been in it recently, though only a couple of drops shook out on to my palm. Maybe the goatskin had contained wine too. Being tipsy could explain how he came to be overpowered.

His attire was Eastern, protecting him from the burning heat. Those swathes of cloth would have impeded his movements if he had been struggling to escape an attacker. I had no doubt he had been attacked. His face was grazed and cut, probably where he had been pushed bodily over the edge of the water tank. Then someone must have jumped in alongside, probably not to hold his head under; marks on his neck looked more like strangulation to me. Helena showed me that in addition to the ground that had been soaked when I clambered out, beside the tank on the far side was a similar wet area where the killer must have emerged sopping wet, The sun had made his tracks faint already, but Helena had found them leading back towards the ceremonial platform.

We left the body and recrossed the summit in front of the altar. The trail petered out, already evaporated by sun and wind. To the north we found a moon god's shrine with two crescent-crowned pillars flanking a niche; beyond that lay a wide staircase leading downwards. But now we could hear voices approaching – a large number of people, intoning a low ceremonial chant. This was plainly a major ceremonial route to the High Place. I doubted whether the killer could have rushed down that way, or the procession now winding up the stairs would have been disturbed.

Helena and I turned away and climbed back by the same steps that had brought us up. We scrambled down as far as the priests' house or guardpost. We could have knocked and asked for help. Why take the easy way? Still loath to encounter anybody with a sharp implement who might view me as an easy catch for the altar, I convinced myself the murderer would have crept past anonymously too.

Now I noticed a second path. This must be the one he had taken; he had certainly not passed us while we were canoodling. Helena was a senator's daughter after all; she was supposed to know the meaning of modesty. We had been alert for voyeurs.

I never know when to leave well alone. 'Go down,' I commanded Helena. 'Either wait for me near the theatre, or I'll see you back at the lodging. Go down the same way we came up.'

She made no protest. The sight of the dead man's face must have stayed in her mind. Anyway, her attitude mirrored my own. I would have done this in Rome; being a visiting flea on the rump of civilisation changed nothing. Somebody had just killed this man, and I was going after whoever did it. Helena knew I had no choice. Helena would have come with me if she could cover ground as fast.

I touched her gently on the cheek and felt her fingers brush my wrist. Then without a second thought I started down the path.