Could a memory of the skull and feathers be the inspiration behind Caleb’s chunky necklace? He’d worn it on the day of the fire, striding through the dry grass, then through the ash and charcoal. I loved watching him. My son. Soon I’d go back to hospital, even if it was only so I could watch him sleep. Damaged, but not broken. I imagined him moving across the creek bed, his mind on some mysterious purpose that was not fire – that could never be arson – because he could not be responsible for this.

My phone buzzed while I thought about getting out of bed. An email from Marco, asking why I hadn’t responded to his discovery of the Latona statue, and if I had time to Skype.

Did I want to talk to him? He always preferred objects to words. ‘Texts are always political,’ he often said, ‘but objects are real.’ Early archaeologists had tried not to look at texts, but focused on what they could discover about the past with their own eyes and hands.

There was no point telling him what was happening. He couldn’t come here to dig up the truth, and he couldn’t tolerate the pace of a criminal investigation. It would seem frantic to Marco, who once spent three weeks putting together a single vase.

Then again, it would be a relief to talk to someone who didn’t know. Marco was part of an archaeological layer in my own life. I imagined him in Rome, at his laptop, waiting to see if I’d Skype. He might have recently left the cool darkness of his dig, and carry with him the smell of dust undisturbed for centuries. I associated his name with the clink of a trowel against stone, the mouth-filling taste of cheap local wines bought near digs. If only none of this was real – not the fire or the deaths or the rumours. I could be there! Marco had a miraculous way of seeing the whole sweep of history in one view. He’d keep me sane.

I typed the Skype contact details he sent and waited to see if we’d connect. I knew the building of a third subway line through Rome meant he and his colleagues were now able to dig thirty metres below ground, a far cry from the usual six or so encouraged when ground was excavated for a shopping centre or car park. Rome wasn’t simply just one city, but was modern Rome on top of medieval Rome on top of ancient Rome.