OK, he thought. Maybe try something from a different angle. Something more oblique. He Googled ‘ Benjamin Franklin Museum cellar’.

And there, almost immediately. Yes! Forrester felt prickles of adrenalin. He scanned the screen urgently.

On the very first website was a verbatim newspaper report from The Times, dated February 11, 1998.

Bones Discovered in Founding Father’s House

Excavators at the Craven Street home of Benjamin Franklin, the Founding Father of the USA, have made a macabre discovery: eight skeletons concealed beneath the flagstones of the wine cellar.

Initial estimates suggest that the bones are about 200 years old and were buried at the time Franklin was living in the house, which was his home from 1757 to 1762, and from 1764 to 1775. Most of the bones show signs of having been dissected, sawn or cut. One skull has been bizarrely drilled with several holes. Paul Knapman, the Westminster Coroner, said yesterday, ‘I cannot totally discount the possibility of a crime. There is still a possibility that I may have to hold an inquest.’

The Friends of Benjamin Franklin Museum claim that the bones had no occult or criminal connection. They say the bones were probably placed there by William Hewson, who lived in the house for two years and who had built a small anatomy school at the back of the house. They note that while Franklin perhaps knew what Hewson was doing, he probably did not participate in any dissections because he was much more of a physicist than a medical man.

Forrester sat back. The cellar had been dug up before. With surprising results. Was this why the guys had returned? And what was this about ’occult or criminal connections’?

Occult…

The detective smiled. He was looking forward to lunch now. It was possible that he had the first sniff of a lead.

8

It was a soft, warm evening in Sanliurfa. In the lobby of his hotel Rob found Christine perched on a leather seat trying not to inhale the smoke from three cigar-puffing Turkish businessmen sitting nearby. She looked chic as ever-elegant jeans, sandals, a white sleeveless top under an aquamarine cardigan. When she saw Rob she smiled, but he could see stress in the corners of her eyes.

They were going to Franz Breitner’s for a few drinks: a supper party to celebrate the great success of the latest digging season: the dating of Gobekli Tepe.

‘Is it far?’

‘Twenty minutes’ walk.’ Christine replied. ‘And about thirty minutes’ drive. It’s right past the market.’

The restaurants and cafés were stirring after the torpor of the afternoon. The scent of roast lamb from turning spits wafted across the dust-whirled streets. Taxi drivers hooted; a crippled man in a wheelchair hawked yesterday’s Ankara newspapers; the pistachio sellers were wheeling their glass-fronted barrows into position. Rob greedily inhaled the exoticism of the scene.

‘Shall we buy some wine? To take to Franz’s place?’

Christine laughed. ‘In Sanliurfa?’

They walked past a clock-tower into the old town. Rob scanned the ancient colonnades, the kiosks selling garish plastic toys, the endless mobile phone outlets. Various open air cafés were full of heavy-set Kurdish men smoking hookahs, eating from plates of white Turkish delight, and staring hard at Christine. No one was drinking alcohol.

‘They don’t sell booze? Anywhere?’ Rob felt his mood plummet. He hadn’t had a beer or a glass of wine in three days. He drank too much, he knew that, but that was how he coped with the stress of his job. Especially after Baghdad. And three days without alcohol was quite long enough to reconfirm a fact he already knew: he wasn’t suited to sobriety.

‘Actually, I think there are a couple of liquor shops on the outskirts of town. But it’s like scoring dope in England. All very furtive.’

‘Jesus.’

‘What do you expect? This is a Muslim city.’

‘I’ve been to a few Muslim cities, Christine. But I thought Turkey was secular.’

‘People think the Kurds are somehow westernized.’ She smiled. ‘They’re not. Especially the ones around here. Some of them are exceptionally conservative.’

‘Guess I’m used to Palestine and Lebanon. Even in Egypt you can get a fucking beer.’

Christine placed a comforting arm around his shoulder and hugged him. Her smile was sarcastic-but friendly. ‘Good news is Franz has plenty of hooch. He brings it from Istanbul.’

‘Thank God for that!’

‘Bien sur. I know what journalists are like. Especially British journalists.’

‘American, Christine.’

‘Here-look-the fish pools!’

They’d reached the sweet green oasis at the heart of the town. The little tea houses twinkled in the twilight sun; Turkish bachelors were walking hand-in-hand along the tree-lined pathways. Across the waters of the pools, the beautiful stone arcades of a mosque were shining like ancient gold.

Christine and Rob watched a large family group: the men in baggy trousers and the women in full black veils. Rob considered how the women must have been sweltering through the day, and he felt an automatic resentment on their behalf. Christine, however, seemed unfazed. ‘The Bible says Job was born here, as well as Abraham’.

‘Sorry?’

‘ Urfa.’ Christine pointed to the steep hill, beyond the fishponds and gardens, on top of which stood a crumbling castle-where a huge Turkish flag hung flaccid in the windless warmth, between two Corinthian columns. ‘Some scholars think this is Ur, the original city in the Book of Genesis. The Akkadians, the Sumerians, the Hittites, they all lived here. The oldest city in the world.’

‘I thought that was Jericho?’

‘Pah!’ Christine chortled. ‘ Jericho! A mere stripling. This place is much older. In the old town behind the bazaar there are people who still live in caves cut into the rock.’ Christine glanced back at the fishponds. The shrouded women were feeding bread to the shoals of excited carp. ‘The carp are black because they are meant to be ashes of Abraham. They say if you see a white fish in the pond you will go to heaven!’

‘That’s fantastic! Can we go and eat now?’

Christine laughed, again. Rob liked her good-natured laugh. In fact, he liked Christine a lot: her academic enthusiasm, her cleverness, her good humour. He felt an unexpected urge to share his inmost thoughts with her; show her a picture of little Lizzie. He suppressed the inclination.

The Frenchwoman was gesturing, enthusiastically.

‘Breitner’s house is just past the bazaar up this hill. We can take a look at the bazaar if you like: it’s got an authentic caravanserai, sixteenth century, built by the Abbasids with some older elements and…’ She glanced at him, then chuckled. ‘Or we could go straight there and get a beer?’

The walk was short but steep, behind the back of the souk. Men ferrying silver trays of tea and olives came the other way, and all of them stared at Christine. An orange-coloured sofa sat inexplicably across the opposite pavement. The smell of hot unleavened bread filled the narrow alleys. In the middle of it all was a very old, very beautiful house, with balconies and Mediterranean shutters.

‘Breitner’s place. You’ll like his wife.’

Christine was right. Rob did like Franz’s wife, Derya: she was a vivacious, secular, smart, thirty-something woman from Istanbul, with no headscarf or veil, and excellent English. When she wasn’t teasing Franz about his bald head or his obsession with ‘menhirs’ she served Rob and Christine, and the other archaeologists who had all gathered for the supper party. And the food was good: a splendid buffet of cold lamb sausages, rice in vine leaves, exquisite walnut pastries, thick gooey chunks of baklava and greeny-pink arcs of the freshest water melon. Even better, just as Christine has promised, there was plenty of icy cold Turkish beer-and some decent red wine from Cappadocia. Within a couple of hours Rob was feeling very relaxed, convivial and happy, content to listen to the archaeologists argue about Gobekli.