‘Transcription of these cylinders is the first step. I have been corresponding with the keepers of the antiquities at the British Museum. I have suggested another expedition to search for the original text as a matter of urgency. I’m hoping for a reply shortly.’

‘But you never went back to India yourself?’ Vincenzo asks, handing a cup of tea to Notovitch.

The old man shakes his head. ‘After Anya’s father’s death I was compelled to take over the running of the firm. My responsibilities to the company, my duties to my wife, fatherhood, all made it impossible. There were practical obstacles. And, besides, what would it have achieved?’

‘You could have brought back the original gospel. You could have proved your critics wrong.’

‘Perhaps. Perhaps not,’ says Notovitch mildly. ‘To begin with, I’m not certain the abbot or the Rinpoche would have consented to let the text leave the monastery. But ask yourself this: was there any evidence that would have satisfied my critics?’

The younger man begins to list things that might have been adequate – copies of the text in Pali, testimony from Buddhist priests, photographs – but Notovitch dismisses them instantly.

‘Mr Dittami, the world is stories in arms. In my own lifetime, I have seen history altered by the power of stories. But it was never their likelihood or any positive proof that gave them victory. Rachkovsky knew this. Herzl knew this. They understood the power of a simple story – the simpler the better. And more than this, they understood in an uncanny way which existing stories had the power to be shaped, to be rewritten in ways that would alter how we live.’

‘You didn’t go back,’ says Vincenzo again, now almost wonderingly; it’s no longer a question.

‘No,’ agrees Notovitch. ‘What would have been the point?’

‘None,’ Vincenzo says. ‘There was no evidence you could have brought back—’

‘Precisely.’

‘—because there was no evidence.’

Notovitch’s eyes narrow. He sets the cup in the saucer with a click and glances over at the Imperator. It’s not recording. ‘Our work is concluded, Mr Dittami. I don’t wish to keep you from your family.’

Vincenzo is not so easily put off. The questions in his mind are not the ones that Notovitch has posed. He’s not wondering why the old man chose this moment to dust off his old, derided story. Since Hemis, since the Rinpoche, or thereabouts, he’s started to have misgivings about Notovitch’s basic truthfulness. It arose as a suspicion so slight that at first he didn’t have a word for it, only a visual image: a fox, sniffing cold air for an unfamiliar scent, nostrils subtly dilating, catching – what was it? – a faint whiff of falsehood?

‘There was no evidence,’ Vincenzo persists. ‘There never was a gospel. I doubt you even broke your leg. I expect there was no duel. Perhaps no Bessie either.’