‘Which means?’

‘You are the detective. I think it means he will go too far. They will make a mistake in their frenzy. The only question is…’

‘How many people they will kill first?’

‘Exactly. Now you’ve got to try this daikon. It’s a kind of radish. Tastes like paradise.’

Back at Scotland Yard, Forrester relived the lunch with a happy burp. Then he sat in his swivel chair and spun around, like a kid. He was mildly drunk from the sake. But he could justify it. The lunch had been very useful. With his new friend Hugo. Forrester picked up the phone and called Boijer.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘Boijer, I need a search. A trawl.’

‘What of?’

‘Ring around the classier public schools.’

‘OK…’

‘Start with Eton. Winchester. Westminster. Don’t go any lower than Millfield. Do Harrow. Check the list with the Headmasters’ Conference.’

‘Right. And…what do we ask them?’

‘For missing boys. Missing pupils. And try the better universities, too. Oxbridge, London, St Andrews. Durham. You know the roster.’

‘Bristol.’

‘Why not. And Exeter. And the agricultural college at Cirencester. We need to find students who dropped out, suddenly and recently. I want posh boys. With problems.’

The rotten, semi-mummified corpse of the baby lay on the floor. A reek of ancient decomposition swirled in the air. Bare bulbs flickered above the monuments and shelves of the museum vault. The approaching men were big, armed, and angry. Rob thought he recognized some from the dig. Kurds. They looked Kurdish.

There was only one door to the vault. And the route to the door was filled with these menacing figures. Eight or nine men. Some of them had guns: an old pistol; a shotgun; a brand new hunting rifle. The rest of them had large knives, one so big it was like a machete. Rob flashed an apologetic and hapless glance at Christine. She smiled, sadly, desperately. And then she walked over, reached out and squeezed Rob’s hand.

They were captured, and separated. The men grabbed Rob by the collar and Christine by the arms. Rob watched as the largest of them, the apparent leader, gazed down the side aisle at the cracked-open urn and the pitiful little corpse with the strange pungent liquor drooling out around it. He hissed at his colleagues and immediately two of the Kurdish men peeled off from the main group and walked down the side aisle, perhaps to deal with the evidence, to do something with the obscene little heap of faintly rotting flesh.

Rob and Christine were marched out of the vault. One of the men holding Rob dug a pistol, hard, into his cheek. The cold muzzle smelled of grease. Another two men grasped Christine fiercely by her bare arms. The tall man with the hunting rifle brought up the rear with a couple of lieutenants.

Where were they taking them? Rob could sense that the Kurds were also scared: maybe as scared as him and Christine. But these men were also determined. They pushed and pulled Rob and Christine down the long lines of antiquities, past the desert monsters, the Roman generals and the Canaanite storm gods. Past Anzu, and Ishtar, and Nimrud.

They climbed the stairs to the main museum chamber. Christine was swearing bravely, in French. Rob felt a surge of protectiveness-for her-and a surge of shame-for himself. He was the man here. He should be able to do something. Be heroic. Kick the knives from the Kurdish hands, turn and wrestle the kidnappers to the ground: grab Christine’s hand and save her, drag her to blazing freedom.

But life wasn’t like that. They were being led, like captured animals, slowly but surely: to their certain fate. And that was…what exactly? Were they being kidnapped? Was this a stunt? Were these guys terrorists? What was going on? He hoped that the Kurds were somehow policemen. But he knew quite surely that they weren’t. They couldn’t be. This wasn’t like an arrest. These guys looked furtive and guilty-and faintly murderous. Images of beheadings flooded his mind. All those poor guys in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya. Held to the ground. The knife sawing across the cartilage and the windpipe. The gaseous exhalation as the headless body pumped air and blood, and then slumped to the ground. Allahu Akhbar. Allahu Akhbar. The grainy internet footage. The horror. A live human sacrifice, on the world wide web.

Christine was still swearing. Rob struggled and writhed but the men had him firmly. He couldn’t be a hero. He could try shouting. ‘Christine? he called. ‘Christine?’

Behind him he heard, ‘Yes!’

‘Are you OK? What the-’

A fist slammed into Rob’s mouth. He felt his palate fill with hot salty blood. The pain was searing: his body sagged.

The leader came around, to face him. He lifted Rob’s bleeding face and said, ‘No talk! No speak!’

The leader’s face wasn’t cruel. His expression was more…resigned. As if this was something they had to do, but didn’t necessarily want to. Something truly terrible…

Like an execution.

Rob watched as one of the Kurds slowly and carefully opened the main door of the museum. The sight of the door kicked off a procession of memories. The last few bizarre hours of his life: the sheep being slaughtered in the Urfan streets; the men in the black holiday pantaloons; their own stealthy ingress into the museum. And then the baby’s silent scream. Buried alive twelve thousand years ago.

The Kurd at the door nodded at his compadres. The coast, it seemed, was clear.

‘Go!’ the leader was shouting at Rob. ‘Go into car!’

Brusquely, the men escorted Rob through the sultry, moonlit car park. The car smeared with figs had been joined by three more vehicles. These were old cars: bashed-up local autos-clearly not police cars. Rob felt the last shred of hope disappear.

Their intent was obviously to take Rob and Christine somewhere a distance away. Out of the city maybe. To some lonely farmhouse. Where they would be chained to the seats. Rob imagined the sound of the knife as it ripped across his gullet. Allahu Akhbar. He shook the idea away. He had to stay lucid. Save Christine. Save himself for his daughter.

His daughter!!

Guilt pierced Rob’s heart like a dagger of glass. His daughter Lizzie! He’d promised her just yesterday that he would be home in a week. Now he might never see her again. Stupid stupid stupid stupid.

A hand was pressing on Rob’s head. They wanted him to stoop: to get into the musty backseat of the car. Rob resisted, feeling as if he was being taken to his death. He turned and saw Christine just behind him, a knife at her throat. She was being hauled across to the other car; there was nothing anyone could do.

Then: ‘Stop!’

The moment froze. Bright lights dazzled across the car park.

‘Stop!’

The lights were utterly blinding. Rob now sensed the presence of many more men. Sirens and sirens. Red and blue lights. Light and noise all about. The police. Was this the police? He wrenched an arm from his captor’s grasp and shielded his face and stared into the dazzling blinding light…

It was Kiribali, with twenty or thirty policemen. They were running into the car park. Crouching. Taking position. Taking aim. But these weren’t ordinary policemen. They wore black, almost paramilitary gear and carried submachine guns.

Kiribali was shouting in Turkish at the Kurds. And the Kurds were backing off. The one nearest Rob dropped his old pistol, then raised his hands. Rob saw Christine struggle from her captors and run across the car park to the safety of the police.

Rob wrenched his second arm free and walked across the car park to Kiribali, whose face was blank to the point of contempt. The officer snapped: ‘Come with me.’

Rob and Christine were sharply led away to a big new BMW outside the museum grounds. Kiribali ordered Rob and Christine in the back: he got in the front, then turned and looked at them. ’I’m taking you to the airport.’