Read Online The Dead Travel Fast by Nick Brown - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nick Brown
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to avoid unwelcome attention until we could record and analyse it in detail prior to publication.”
While he was talking Andraki grew paler, and by the time he stumbled to a halt he was dead white. Theodrakis was himself beginning to feel uncomfortable in the close, airless room and worried that the Professor might become too unwell to continue. He suggested they go outside and perhaps get a coffee; Andraki agreed with alacrity, obviously keen to leave his office. They walked across the main square to a smaller one and sat under the shade of a cafe umbrella.
On the walk Theodrakis noticed the number of workless men begging on the streets seemed to be increasing and their behaviourbecoming more aggressive. Many of these weren’t Islanders which caused further friction; some were Albanians who in better times worked as waiters in the tourist season. One of these, a shabby man with a vivid birthmark across the left side of his face, noticed Theodrakis staring, made a gesture with his fingers at him and then spat in the gutter. Theodrakis ignored him, reflecting that Island society was disintegrating but the situation was worse in Athens.
He ordered a mineral water for himself and a coffee for Andraki, then added a raki which the professor said he needed to settle a nervous stomach. This medicine disappeared in two swallows and settled the stomach sufficiently to allow Andraki to continue his narrative.
“The damage done to this site might have destroyed unique evidence, so of course I went back to the Police and this time they were interested. Not because of the archaeology of course, they couldn’t care less about that, but because it coincided with the discovery of the second body. It was also the day that the island news agency received the murderer’s curse.”
Theodrakis interrupted him,
“But that was shown to be a fake.”
“Well, that was the official line, but when you consider the message alongside the clay tablets it’s not so easy to dismiss.”
“Just stop there a moment: what do you mean by the clay tablets?”
“It was decided to keep it quiet but I thought that you would have known about that.”
This rattled Theodrakis; why didn’t he know about it and what else was being kept from him?
“Well, tell me about it anyway, I’ll order you another raki for your digestion.”
Andraki ignored the sarcasm; but he wanted another drink, the nightmare was getting too close.
“When the curse was delivered to the news, it was in a sealed envelope which also contained an old baked clay tablet with some form of ancient script on it and the police wanted me to tell them what it meant. It was unlike any I’d seen but had similarities to early Uruk period script from Mesopotamia. It was a curse likethe ones we know from the later Fara scripts, but too old to translate with any certainty. But we assumed it was similar in content to the modern paper one.”
This Theodrakis did know about, the paper had foolishly printed it so that almost every islander could now quote it from memory:
“Something more ancient than anything on your polluted island now walks amongst you.”
He snapped back at Andraki,
“You know there isn’t an actual clear link between that ambiguous gibberish and the murders. Any deranged oddball could have written it.”
“Yes, and that’s what the police thought until the paper received the second message. By this time the editor had learned to apply a level of discretion so it wasn’t published, but the tablet that accompanied this one was slightly later in date. No don’t stop me now or I may not start again and I want to get all this out of my system. The written message as you know said only ‘Look for me in that place of terror’. But the tablet was in a type of script in use at Ur about four and a half thousand years ago, at least fifteen hundred years later than the first one. Both tablets were genuine, Syntagmatarchis, I know that, it’s my specialism; I have
While he was talking Andraki grew paler, and by the time he stumbled to a halt he was dead white. Theodrakis was himself beginning to feel uncomfortable in the close, airless room and worried that the Professor might become too unwell to continue. He suggested they go outside and perhaps get a coffee; Andraki agreed with alacrity, obviously keen to leave his office. They walked across the main square to a smaller one and sat under the shade of a cafe umbrella.
On the walk Theodrakis noticed the number of workless men begging on the streets seemed to be increasing and their behaviourbecoming more aggressive. Many of these weren’t Islanders which caused further friction; some were Albanians who in better times worked as waiters in the tourist season. One of these, a shabby man with a vivid birthmark across the left side of his face, noticed Theodrakis staring, made a gesture with his fingers at him and then spat in the gutter. Theodrakis ignored him, reflecting that Island society was disintegrating but the situation was worse in Athens.
He ordered a mineral water for himself and a coffee for Andraki, then added a raki which the professor said he needed to settle a nervous stomach. This medicine disappeared in two swallows and settled the stomach sufficiently to allow Andraki to continue his narrative.
“The damage done to this site might have destroyed unique evidence, so of course I went back to the Police and this time they were interested. Not because of the archaeology of course, they couldn’t care less about that, but because it coincided with the discovery of the second body. It was also the day that the island news agency received the murderer’s curse.”
Theodrakis interrupted him,
“But that was shown to be a fake.”
“Well, that was the official line, but when you consider the message alongside the clay tablets it’s not so easy to dismiss.”
“Just stop there a moment: what do you mean by the clay tablets?”
“It was decided to keep it quiet but I thought that you would have known about that.”
This rattled Theodrakis; why didn’t he know about it and what else was being kept from him?
“Well, tell me about it anyway, I’ll order you another raki for your digestion.”
Andraki ignored the sarcasm; but he wanted another drink, the nightmare was getting too close.
“When the curse was delivered to the news, it was in a sealed envelope which also contained an old baked clay tablet with some form of ancient script on it and the police wanted me to tell them what it meant. It was unlike any I’d seen but had similarities to early Uruk period script from Mesopotamia. It was a curse likethe ones we know from the later Fara scripts, but too old to translate with any certainty. But we assumed it was similar in content to the modern paper one.”
This Theodrakis did know about, the paper had foolishly printed it so that almost every islander could now quote it from memory:
“Something more ancient than anything on your polluted island now walks amongst you.”
He snapped back at Andraki,
“You know there isn’t an actual clear link between that ambiguous gibberish and the murders. Any deranged oddball could have written it.”
“Yes, and that’s what the police thought until the paper received the second message. By this time the editor had learned to apply a level of discretion so it wasn’t published, but the tablet that accompanied this one was slightly later in date. No don’t stop me now or I may not start again and I want to get all this out of my system. The written message as you know said only ‘Look for me in that place of terror’. But the tablet was in a type of script in use at Ur about four and a half thousand years ago, at least fifteen hundred years later than the first one. Both tablets were genuine, Syntagmatarchis, I know that, it’s my specialism; I have
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