Read Online The Dead Travel Fast by Nick Brown - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nick Brown
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excavated at both Eridu and Shuruppak.”
“Well, then you will know that the tablets are not related to Samos.”
“That’s what I would like to believe, yes; but ask yourself, is it not curious that the tablets and modern curses claim to be from the murderer and that every time we find a body another Neolithic site on the island is vandalised?”
“So there have been more than two?”
“Yes, and I am convinced that now we have your body from the river we will find another; only this time I will have nothing to do with it, this has damaged me enough already.”
Theodrakis could see he believed what he said but had one more question.
“You said that the script of the second tablet was later; were you able to understand it?”
“Oh yes, I could transcribe it and read it all right: there arethousands of tablets written in the same script. It’s a form of Sumerian but the odd thing is that it was made at a time when Sumerian was no longer used. I think that both tablets refer back to something much older to a time before metal, in fact to the Neolithic. The very context of the sites disturbed here on Samos; odd, so much coincidence, don’t you think?”
“So what does it say?”
“I am not sure it will help you much but it reads ‘E-temen-ni-gur-ru’. This roughly translates as ‘house whose foundation platform is clad in terror’. And I don’t think that gets you much further. The precise meaning is impossible to construe but it indicates something has been built over some pre-existing feature associated with dread. I find it hard not to connect that with the fact that Neolithic burials are being disrupted on this island. Any link with the gruesome murders I don’t want to know.”
He sat back and downed the second raki. Theodrakis sat confused. Andraki got up to leave; as he turned to go he asked a question almost as an afterthought.
“Oh, one thing, Syntagmatarchis, here is a question you probably should be asking yourself. Why did your colleagues not tell you any of this? What are they trying to hide?”
Theodrakis watched him walk away across the square and then ordered a raki for himself, not caring how out of character this was. His mind was spinning dangerously and he needed something to arrest it. What Andraki said made weird sense of what Lucca had told him about at least one of the murder weapons being some type of flint blade.
But what really shook him was closer to home: his colleagues not only disliked him, they were deliberately withholding evidence from him. He couldn’t believe that any level of dislike would persuade cops or their civil service bosses to do that. After all, this was their island and their women were also at risk, they were as scared of this as everyone else. He shouted to the waiter for another drink and as he waited he remembered a cult film he’d watched with a group of friends as a student.
Something about a cop who had been lured to a remote island to solve a kidnapping case but ended up being ritually sacrificed himself. He thought it might have been an English film andremembered they had laughed about it at the time. It didn’t seem funny now, on a different island in similar circumstances. He sat nursing the drink and brooding.
Sometime later he got up, left some money and set off for the police station. He would have it out with them; either they were straight with him or he would inform Athens about the state of policing on the island.
He knew influential people and his father was a man to be reckoned with. Walking to the police station through the stifling hot streets, his anger grew as he concocted how he’d confront them. He knew what he was planning was imprudent but his frustration and the raki drove him on.
As he reached the flight of steps leading up to the station entrance, the automatic doors slid open and the slovenly figure of Samarakis shambled out. He knew that of all the people he might have confronted about this, Samarakis was the
“Well, then you will know that the tablets are not related to Samos.”
“That’s what I would like to believe, yes; but ask yourself, is it not curious that the tablets and modern curses claim to be from the murderer and that every time we find a body another Neolithic site on the island is vandalised?”
“So there have been more than two?”
“Yes, and I am convinced that now we have your body from the river we will find another; only this time I will have nothing to do with it, this has damaged me enough already.”
Theodrakis could see he believed what he said but had one more question.
“You said that the script of the second tablet was later; were you able to understand it?”
“Oh yes, I could transcribe it and read it all right: there arethousands of tablets written in the same script. It’s a form of Sumerian but the odd thing is that it was made at a time when Sumerian was no longer used. I think that both tablets refer back to something much older to a time before metal, in fact to the Neolithic. The very context of the sites disturbed here on Samos; odd, so much coincidence, don’t you think?”
“So what does it say?”
“I am not sure it will help you much but it reads ‘E-temen-ni-gur-ru’. This roughly translates as ‘house whose foundation platform is clad in terror’. And I don’t think that gets you much further. The precise meaning is impossible to construe but it indicates something has been built over some pre-existing feature associated with dread. I find it hard not to connect that with the fact that Neolithic burials are being disrupted on this island. Any link with the gruesome murders I don’t want to know.”
He sat back and downed the second raki. Theodrakis sat confused. Andraki got up to leave; as he turned to go he asked a question almost as an afterthought.
“Oh, one thing, Syntagmatarchis, here is a question you probably should be asking yourself. Why did your colleagues not tell you any of this? What are they trying to hide?”
Theodrakis watched him walk away across the square and then ordered a raki for himself, not caring how out of character this was. His mind was spinning dangerously and he needed something to arrest it. What Andraki said made weird sense of what Lucca had told him about at least one of the murder weapons being some type of flint blade.
But what really shook him was closer to home: his colleagues not only disliked him, they were deliberately withholding evidence from him. He couldn’t believe that any level of dislike would persuade cops or their civil service bosses to do that. After all, this was their island and their women were also at risk, they were as scared of this as everyone else. He shouted to the waiter for another drink and as he waited he remembered a cult film he’d watched with a group of friends as a student.
Something about a cop who had been lured to a remote island to solve a kidnapping case but ended up being ritually sacrificed himself. He thought it might have been an English film andremembered they had laughed about it at the time. It didn’t seem funny now, on a different island in similar circumstances. He sat nursing the drink and brooding.
Sometime later he got up, left some money and set off for the police station. He would have it out with them; either they were straight with him or he would inform Athens about the state of policing on the island.
He knew influential people and his father was a man to be reckoned with. Walking to the police station through the stifling hot streets, his anger grew as he concocted how he’d confront them. He knew what he was planning was imprudent but his frustration and the raki drove him on.
As he reached the flight of steps leading up to the station entrance, the automatic doors slid open and the slovenly figure of Samarakis shambled out. He knew that of all the people he might have confronted about this, Samarakis was the
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