He sat down on a boulder and made some more notes, threading the precious pearls of evidence onto the necklace of the narrative. One quote kept striking home. He remembered his father, in the Mormon church, reciting it. From Genesis Chapter 6: ‘And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them…that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose…’

For half an hour he scribbled, and crossed out, and scribbled again. He was nearly there; the story was nearly finished. Shutting the notebook, he turned and paced down the hill into the valley. He found Christine lying flat on the ground, as if she was asleep. But she wasn’t asleep: she was staring hard and flat across the dust.

‘I’m looking for anomalies,’ she said, looking up at him. ‘And I’ve found some. There!’ She stood up and clapped her hands and the young Kurds stared at her. ‘Please, gentlemen,’ she said. ’Soon you can go home to your families and forget about the madwoman from France. But just one more effort, please. Over there.’

Radevan and his friends picked up their shovels and followed Christine to another corner of the valley.

‘Dig down straight down. Here. And not too deep. Dig wide and shallow. Thank you.’

Rob went to find his spade so he could join in. He liked digging with the Kurds. It gave him something to do other than worry about the possible pointlessness of what they were doing. And Lizzie. And Lizzie and Lizzie and Lizzie.

As they dug, Rob asked Christine about the Neanderthals. She had been explaining how she had worked on several sites where Neanderthals had lived. Like Moula-Guercy, on the banks of the Rhone, in France.

‘Do you think they interbred with Homo sapiens?’

‘Possibly.’

‘But I thought there was a theory that they just died out? The Neanderthals?’

‘There was. But we also have evidence that they may have bred with humans.’ Christine sleeved the sweat from her face. ‘The Neanderthals may even have raped their way into the human gene pool. If they were dying out, unable to compete for food or whatever, they would have been desperate to preserve their own species. And they were bigger than Homo sapiens. Albeit possibly more stupid…’

Rob watched a bird circling in the air: another vulture. He asked a second question. ‘If they did interbreed, might that have altered the way humans behaved? Human culture?’

‘Yes. One possibility is cannibalism. There is no record of organized cannibalism in the human repertoire before about 300,000 BC. Yet the Neanderthals were definitely cannibalistic. So…’ She tilted her head, thinking. ‘So it is possible the Neanderthals might have introduced some traits of their own. Like cannibalism.’

A Turkish Air Force plane streaked across the sky. Christine added one more thought. ‘I was wondering, this morning, about the size of the hominids, the large ones. The bones we found.’

‘Go on…’

‘Well…Your theory that there might be a link with Central Asia, that fits. In a way.’

‘How?’

‘The largest hominid ever found was in Central Asia. Gigantopethicus. Absolutely enormous: an apeman maybe nine foot tall. Like a kind of…yeti…’

‘Seriously?’

His girlfriend nodded. ‘They lived around three hundred thousand years ago. They might have survived longer-and some think that Gigantopethicus might have survived long enough-for memories to persist in Homo sapiens. Memories of enormous apemen.’ She shook her head. ‘But of course this is very fanciful. What’s more likely is that Gigantopethicus died out due to competition from Homo sapiens. No one is quite sure what happened to Gigantopethicus. However…’ She paused, leaning on her spade like a farmer contemplating his fields.

The obvious conclusion dawned on Rob. He took out his notebook, and scribbled excitedly. ‘What you mean is, maybe there is a third explanation, right? Maybe Gigantopethicus did evolve-but into a much more serious rival to Homo sapiens. Isn’t that possible, too?’

Christine nodded, frowning. ‘Yes. It is possible. We have no evidence either way.’

Rob went on. ‘So. Let’s just say that did happen. Then that new hominid-that would be a very large, aggressive and highly intelligent hominid, wouldn’t it? Something evolved to cope with harsh and brutal conditions. A fierce competitor for resources.’

‘Yes. I agree. It would.’

‘And this large, aggressive hominid would also have an instinctive fear of nature, of endless lethal winters, of a cruel and severe God. And it would have a desperate need to propitiate.’

Christine shrugged, as if she didn’t quite follow this latest concept; but she didn’t have time to reply, because Radevan was calling them over. Even as Rob reached the scene, Christine was already on her hands and knees, scraping at more remains.

Three large dirty jars were lying by Radevan’s feet.

They were marked with sanjaks.

Rob knew at once what the jars would contain. And he didn’t have to tell Christine, but she was cracking one of the jars open, anyway, with the handle of a trowel. The ancient jar crumbled and a slimy, fetid-smelling thing oozed into the dust: a half-mummified, half-liquefied baby. The face was not quite as intact as the babies they had found in the Edessa Vault. But the scream of terror and pain on the tiny child’s face was just the same. It was another child sacrifice. Another infant buried alive in a jar.

Rob tried not to think of Lizzie.

Some of the Kurds had spotted the jar, and the remains. The dead and rotting baby. They were pointing, and arguing. Christine asked them to continue digging. But they were shouting now.

Mumtaz approached Rob. ‘They say it is dangerous here. This place is cursed. They see the baby and they say they must go. The water will be here soon.’

Christine pleaded with the men, in English and Kurdish.

The men gabbled at Mumtaz and he interpreted. ’They say the water comes. To bury these bodies and that is good. They say they go now!’

Christine protested again. The argument continued. Some of the Kurds dug, some just stood and debated. The sun rose all the time, hot and menacing. The spades and trowels lay unused, glinting in the merciless light. The sun was baking the small slimy corpse of the baby. That obscene little package of flesh. Rob had an enormous urge to bury it again, to cover up the obscenity. He knew he was close to unlocking the puzzle, but he also felt close to some kind of nervous surrender. The tension was hideous.

And then the tension worsened. Some of the Kurds, led by Mumtaz, came to a decision: they refused to go on. Despite Christine’s pleadings, three of them climbed the slopes of the valley, and got into the second Land Rover.

Mumtaz looked in Rob’s direction as they left, a strange, wistful glance. Then the car accelerated away into the dust and the haze.

But four men still remained, including Radevan. And with the last of her charm, and the last of Rob’s dollars, Christine persuaded them to complete the task. So they all picked up the discarded shovels, and together they dug. They dug for five hours, sideways across the valley, shifting enough dry, yellow soil to expose what was necessary, and then moving on.

They uncovered parts of maybe thirty skeletons lying next to the jars. But these were no ordinary skeletons. They were a mixture of the large hominids and the hybrid men and the little huntergatherers. All jumbled together, promiscuously and wildly. And all of the skeletons showed damage: signs of violent death. Vicious cracks in the skull, spear-holes in pelvic bones. Broken arms, broken femurs, broken heads.

They had uncovered a battlefield. A terrible site of slaughter and conflict. They had uncovered the Valley of Killing.

Christine looked at Rob. He looked back and said, ‘I think we’re done here. Don’t you?’