The Yezidi man stood and shouted through the window. The door swung open and more men came in. Rob was jostled again, but this time it was with a purpose and a calm determination. He was shunted outside through the temple. He glanced at the altar as he was pushed along: the skull was gone. Then he was out in the sun. Kids were pointing at him. Rob saw women staring, hands over their mouths. He was being led to the Ford pickup truck.

The driver was ready. Rob’s bag was on the passenger seat, waiting. Rob was still tied by the wrists. Two men helped him up into the cabin. He stared out of the window as another man got into the cab: a dark, bearded man, younger than Karwan. Strong and muscular, and silent. He was going to sit between Rob and the truck door; Rob was in the middle seat.

The Ford pulled out, wheels spinning in the dust. Rob’s last glimpse of Lalesh was of Karwan, standing amongst the staring children, beside one of the conical towers. His expression was enormously sad.

Then Lalesh disappeared behind a slope as the truck tore down the hillside, heading for the Turkish border.

35

As soon as Rob was shoved across the Turkish border at Habur he phoned Christine, then jumped in a taxi for the nearest city. Mardin. Seven arduous hours later he booked into a hotel room, phoned Christine again, phoned his daughter; then he fell asleep with the phone in his hand, he was so tired.

The next morning he sat down at his laptop and wrote-immediately, passionately, and in one session-his story.

Kidnapped by the Cults of Kurdistan.

He felt that writing the piece quickly and unthinkingly was the only way. There were so many disparate elements that, if he sat down and cogitated, if he tried to form a coherent narrative, there was a risk he would get lost in the many details and the endless byways. Also, the article might seem contrived if he toiled over it: the story was so bizarre it had to sound simple and heartfelt for it to work. Very immediate. Very honest. As if he was telling someone a long and astonishing anecdote over a coffee. So Rob just banged it down in one go. Gobekli Tepe and the jars in the museum, the Yezidi and the Cult of Angels and the worship of Melek Taus. The ceremonies in Lalesh and the skull on the altar and the mystery of the Black Book. All of it, the whole story, spiced with violence and murder. And it now had a good ending: it concluded with him lying on his side, a hood over his head, in a filthy little room in the mountains of Kurdistan: thinking he was going to die.

The article took five hours to write. Five hours in which he barely looked up from his laptop, he was so focused. In the zone.

After six minutes of spellchecking, Rob copied the piece on to a data stick, walked out of the hotel and went straight to an internet café. Then he plugged in the data stick and emailed the piece to Steve, in London, who was impatiently awaiting his copy.

He sat nervously in the quiet internet café by the computer, hoping that Steve would phone back soon with his response. The hot Mardin sun was bright in the streets outside, but in here it was almost sepulchral. Only one other guy was in the internet café, drinking an obscure Turkish soda, playing some computer game. The boy had big fat headphones on. He was eviscerating an onscreen monster with a virtual AK47. The monster had purple claws and sad eyes. Its intestines spilled out, vivid and green.

Rob returned to his own screen. He checked the weather in Spain for no reason. He Googled his own name. He Googled Christine’s name. He discovered that she was the author of ’Neanderthal Cannibalism in Ice Age Euskera’ in a recent addition of American Archaeology. He also found a nice picture of her receiving an obscure award in Berlin.

Rob stared at the picture. He missed Christine. Not as much as he missed his daughter, but he missed her. The decorous conversation; her perfume; her graciousness. The way she smiled when they had sex, with her eyes shut, as if she was dreaming of something very sweet that had happened very long ago.

His mobile rang.

‘Robbie!’

‘Steve…’ His heart was thumping. He hated this bit. ‘Well?’

‘Well,’ said Steve. ‘I don’t know what to say…’

Rob’s spirits sagged. ‘You don’t like it?

Pause. ‘Nah, you arse. I fucking love it!’

Rob’s spirits rocketed.

Steve was laughing. ‘Jesus, Rob I only sent you to do a fucking history piece. Thought it might be nice for you. Bit of a break. But you witness a murder. You get assaulted by Satanists. You discover a Stone Age toddler in a pickle jar. You find some more devil-worshippers. You hear evil Kurdish death prayers. You…you…you…’ Steve was running out of breath. ‘Then you go to Iraq and you meet some mystery bloke who takes you to a sacred capital where his people worship a fucking pigeon and you find them all bowing down to some alien skull at which point the Yezzers run in and try to stab you before telling you they are all directly descended from Adam and Eve.’

Rob was silent. Then he burst out laughing. His laughter was very loud-so loud that the monsterslaughtering kid on the computer across the room looked up and tapped his headphones to see if they were working properly. ‘So you think the story is OK? I’ve tried to be fair to the Yezidi…Maybe too fair, but I just-’

Steve interrupted:

‘It’s more than OK! I love it. And so does the boss. We’re gonna run it tomorrow in the centre, dps, and we’ll have a teaser on the front.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yup. Straight into print. We’ve got your pics too. You’re done a grand job.’

That’s great. That’s…’

‘Bloody great, yeah I know. Now when are you heading back?’

‘I’m not sure…I mean, I’m trying to get the first flight I can, but they’re booked solid. And I don’t fancy a twenty-hour bus ride to Ankara. Certainly I’ll be in London by the weekend.’

‘Good man. Come in to the office and I’ll buy you lunch. Might even go to a proper restaurant. With pizzas.’

Rob chuckled. He said his goodbyes to his boss. Then he paid the internet café owner and walked out into Mardin.

It was a nice city, Mardin. From what little Rob had seen of it, the city seemed poor but very historic and atmospheric. It was said to date from the Flood: it had Roman streets, and Byzantine remains, and Syriac goldsmiths. It had weird lanes that ran under the houses. But Rob didn’t care any more. He’d had enough historic and Oriental fantasies. He wanted to get home now: to cool, modern, rainy, beautiful, hi-tech European London. To hug his daughter and kiss Christine.

Standing by the doorway to a bakery, he called Christine. He’d already rung her twice today-but he just liked talking to her. She picked up at once. He told her the story had gone down well at the newspaper and she said that was great and told Rob she wanted him back in England. He said he would be there as soon as he possibly could, five days max. Then she told him she was still seeing a lot of his daughter, becoming firm friends. Indeed, Sally had asked Christine if she’d like to help out with Lizzie. Sally had a day-long law course to do in Cambridge so Christine had agreed to look after Rob’s daughter. They were going to spend the afternoon seeing De Savary, Christine’s old friend and lecturer; that is, if Rob didn’t mind. She wanted to talk to De Savary about the link with the murders in England, since he seemed to know so much of what the police were doing. And Lizzie was keen to go see some cows and sheep.

The Frenchwoman told him she missed him, a lot, and Rob said he was longing to see her, and then they both rang off. He walked down the road back to his hotel, thinking of lunch. Ambling happily. But as soon as he put the phone back in his pocket a sharp and sudden realization brought him up short. De Savary. Cambridge. The murders.