Valeria was offering Gallio the extinction he had longed for in Caistor, and for most of the time in Patras. Cassius Gallio could disappear and his name with him, a Speculator who never existed.
‘Unless you give me a reason to change my mind the CCU will leave you in peace. Your work is done. For the avoidance of doubt, should anyone ask, I see no one here at the Abbey but us.’ She gestured round the terrace, at Claudia and Paul and Paul’s bodyguard. ‘Just the three of us, you and me and John.’
‘The last surviving disciple of Jesus,’ Gallio said. ‘It took us a while, but we got there in the end. Every disciple located, and all dead apart from John. You don’t worry it was too easy?’
‘The full set, exactly. When no disciples are left alive, Jesus can’t come back. Or none of his sympathisers can tell that particular story, not in good faith, about Jesus returning at the latest in the lifetime of his beloved disciple. His prophecy collapses, and with it the dangerous idea that he’s a mystical genius. With John we have the twelve. We’re done.’
‘Here I am.’ John opened his hands towards her, lifted up his arms. ‘You win. We’ve been hopeless at protecting ourselves.’
‘I’d have to agree,’ Valeria said.
‘Be careful, you’re falling into their trap.’
Despite Gallio’s best efforts in Caistor and in Patras, he’d found he couldn’t walk away from the story of Jesus. He saw the same patterns repeating themselves, but this time Valeria was at the centre, over-confident as he’d once been in Jerusalem. Gallio believed he’d outwitted Jesus, because a corpse does not escape a sealed tomb. Valeria was satisfied that eleven disciples of Jesus had not chosen to die — but if they didn’t think this through Jesus would trick them again.
‘I know you were responsible for killing the other disciples,’ Gallio said. He wasn’t expecting Valeria to confess, but she would listen to his reasoning. She was a Speculator too, and Gallio was worthy of her attention if he could unfold the how and the why.
‘Personally?’
‘You have your people,’ Gallio said. ‘Operatives like me, like Claudia. We don’t see them and they don’t see us. You’ll deny them, because that’s the agreement, but you made it to regional chief of CCU because you respect how complex a case can get.’
‘I didn’t kill the disciple Simon in England. How did I kill Simon? I didn’t kill Andrew in Patras or James when he jumped from that roof.’
‘Simon in Caistor was an unexpected bonus, courtesy of Baruch, and in Jerusalem with James the riot police followed your orders. They have comms equipment, like the rest of us. They radioed for guidance, then used their batons because that’s what you told them to do.’
‘How did I get James off the roof?’
‘Paul made the phone call,’ Gallio said. ‘When James picked up, Paul kept quiet. That was a signal. James wanted to die, as did the others. Paul helped James by letting him know when the time was right, a dark evening when you were jacked into the HQ radio. Paul started the process with the phone call, then you finished the job.’
‘I enjoy your agile mind,’ Valeria said. ‘If it wasn’t for Jesus you could have been one of the greats. Explain to me how I killed Andrew.’
‘You had your people in the Patras mob, easy to disguise during Carnival. In their costumes and masks they incited the locals and ramped up the aggression. They were the ones who had the cross ready, and the bindings. The mastermind assassin was never Paul, nor was it Jesus, or Satan. It was you, Valeria, though you were helped by Paul from the start. You sent us after Paul in Antioch to give yourself time to kill Thomas in Babylon, then you tipped off Paul and let him run from his hotel before we could make his life awkward. He’s a paid informer and he told you where to find the disciples. My role was to make it look like we found them by ourselves.’
On the terrace of the Abbey, John was a picture of serenity, rejoicing that finally his time had come. Paul, however, was showing the strain. He didn’t know where to stand; it was as if he wanted to avoid Gallio as the truth came out. He moved into the shadows, banged the back of his head against the stones of the Abbey. He slapped his hand over his eyes, ran his palm down his face. He mumbled to himself, the same sounds over and over, and this was not the composed style of prayer favoured by James on the monitors. Paul clenched his fists and squeezed his old eyes shut. He released his jaw and uncricked his neck, reminding Gallio of Baruch whose soul was never at rest.
‘You’ll find no evidence of civilised involvement in these deaths,’ Valeria said. ‘With the single exception of Peter, punished for organising the fire of Rome, an unforgivable act of terror. As for the other disciples, they were randomly murdered by whichever excitable locals they upset most. Infidels can be vicious. That’s how history will remember this.’
‘You’re probably right. Until Peter you kept it clean. We achieved the result we wanted while maintaining our reputation for tolerance. You constructed and followed a brilliant piece of reasoning, which I respect. But you’re also wrong.’
Paul was louder with his repetitive prayer, moaning the words over and over oh lord oh lord. John joined him and held his hand, as encouragement. Claudia held the envelope with the money, but this was never a story about the money.
‘Paul has given me valuable assistance,’ Valeria said. ‘I admit that. We understand each other, and recently we both saw that the disciples had outstayed their welcome. They and their storytelling had to be removed to make way for ideas less damaging to the stability of modern life. We’ll replace superstition with community values. The resurrection becomes a symbolic idea rather than an absurd and exceptional fact.’
Valeria sounded so reasonable. Cassius Gallio pressed a fist to a twitch beside his eye. So reasonable yet mistaken. No one understood the cunning of Jesus but him. ‘Paul isn’t betraying the disciples,’ he said, ‘he’s helping them out. If Paul wants them dead he’s on their side. Trust me on this.’
‘You’re unbelievable,’ Valeria said. ‘Claudia, tell him his speculation doesn’t make sense.’
‘I think it does,’ Claudia said, ‘at least until the point about dying. Valeria, you killed the disciples with the help of Paul. But I can’t agree they wanted to die, because that would mean they manipulated the CCU, which makes them smarter than us.’
‘Remember the tomb in Jerusalem,’ Gallio said. He needed to convince them both. ‘Valeria, you were there when Jesus supposedly died, and whatever took place on the Friday and the Sunday we never successfully explained. These are clever people. Jesus picked disciples sharp enough to keep up with his scams and hoaxes.’
‘Paul is my asset,’ Valeria said. ‘We have everything under control. He’s my agent, and has been for years.’
‘Which puts him beyond reproach,’ Gallio said. ‘He has the perfect cover. Valeria, open your eyes and see what’s in front of you. He doesn’t work for us he works for them. Paul is a triple agent. He’s the father, the son and the holy ghost.’
‘I think my time has come.’ John’s voice wavered as he stepped forward, unsure who was tasked with the actual killing. ‘None of us can wait for ever.’
John spends hours at a time in his cave, hidden from heavenly sight, and over the years Cassius Gallio has occasionally failed to chivvy him outside.
‘Another glorious day,’ he’d say, which was unlikely to cheer John up. ‘Your loss, but at some stage you’ll have to forgive him for keeping you alive.’
‘How long before you forgave him for what he did to you?’
‘Fair point. Jesus is not an easy person to forgive.’