Читать книгу Sanctus and The Key: 2 Bestselling Thrillers - Simon Toyne, Simon Toyne - Страница 69

Liv stared down at the new photograph.

Another stainless-steel tray lined with a white paper towel, on top of which lay five small brown seeds, each with something scratched on to its shiny surface.

Arkadian slid a third photo across the table.

‘The symbols were scratched on both sides,’ he said. ‘Five seeds, ten symbols – mostly letters, a mixture of upper and lower case.’

He arranged the photographs so one overlapped the other. The letters were now lined up in pairs.

T a M + k

? s A a l

‘They’re arranged in the same order in both photographs so you can see which marks were scratched on to each seed in case the pairings were deliberate. I can’t see anything in them myself, but perhaps that’s the point. Maybe it’s not supposed to be obvious to anyone. Maybe it was just meant for you.’

Liv looked at the jumble of letters.

‘Mean anything?’

‘Not immediately,’ she said. ‘Can I have that pen back?’

Arkadian reached into his pocket and handed it over.

She took the newspaper, smoothed it flat and copied the symbols into the blank sections of sky surrounding the image of her brother. She saw her own name emerge from the letters and spelled it out, adding the rest of the symbols underneath to maintain the original pairings.

s a M l ?

a + A k T

Was it shorthand telling her SAMUEL had been ATTACKED? It seemed a bit of a stretch. Besides, the seeds had been discovered during his post-mortem, which surely made the warning somewhat redundant.

‘Haven’t you got expert code breakers for this kind of thing?’

‘There’s a cryptology professor at the big university in Gaziantep who helps us from time to time, but I haven’t called him. It seems to me your brother went to extraordinary lengths to make sure this message wasn’t found by the wrong people, so the least I could do was respect that. I honestly think it was intended for you and you’re the only one who’ll be able to make any sense of it.’ Arkadian lowered his voice. ‘No one else knows about these seeds. Just the pathologist who found them, me – and now you. I kept the photographs out of the file. If news of this got out, I’d have every Ruinologist and Sacramental conspiracy theorist offering their take on its meaning. I’m trying to solve this case, not the identity of the Sacrament – although …’ He scrutinized the seeds once more.

‘Although what?’ Liv prompted.

‘Although I rather suspect they may well turn out to be the same thing.’