The Messiah Secret by James Becker

a couple of references to Egypt already.’
    ‘What about the photographs?’
    ‘Just pictures of the two paintings Bartholomew sold. Interesting, but not helpful.’ She shrugged. ‘Back to workfor me, I’m afraid. But do keep poking around. You never know what you might find.’
    It was early afternoon, and Bronson and Angela had just finished their sandwich lunch. There was an extra sandwich in the fridge, and this would be Bronson’s lonely dinner after the rest of the team had left him in the house at the end of the day.
    ‘Look what I’ve found in one of the attics,’ Bronson said, walking back into the kitchen carrying a dusty cardboard box. The label says “First C Corinth”, with a question mark after it.’
    Angela walked across to where Bronson was standing.
    ‘If that label actually relates to the contents of the box, it could be quite interesting,’ she said. ‘A first-century Corinthian piece would be a lot more exciting than most of the stuff I’ve seen so far. Let me have a look.’ She lifted the newspaper-wrapped object out of the box. The pot was shaped like a tall water jug, and Angela stood it on its base while she cut the string and removed the wrappings.
    ‘Coffee or tea?’ Bronson asked, but got no response. When he turned round to look, Angela was staring at a tall, wide-necked, blue-green vessel with a single handle and some kind of animal images inscribed in horizontal bands around it. There was a scatter of paper and bits of string lying on the table nearby.
    ‘If I had champagne here, I’d drink that,’ Angela said at last. ‘Do you know what this is?’
    ‘I’m just a simple copper, remember? What is it?’
    ‘I think – in fact, I’m almost sure – it’s a proto-Corinthian olpe .’
    ‘Really? It just looks like a big green jug to me.’
    Angela came over and gave him a hug. ‘What you’ve just found is very rare, especially in such excellent condition. I’ve seen one similar one, but it’s in the Louvre in Paris. An olpe is a wine vessel. This one’s decorated with registers – these horizontal bands – of what I think are lions and bears, and it probably dates from around six hundred and fifty BC .’
    ‘Not first century, then, like it says on the box?’
    Angela shook her head decisively. ‘Definitely not. It’s over half a millennium older than that.’
    ‘So it’s valuable, then?’
    ‘Oh, yes. I’m not an appraiser, but this could be almost priceless!’
    ‘So do you want me to bring the others down?’
    ‘Others?’ Angela went white. ‘There are others?’
    Bronson smiled at her. It felt great to be working together again. ‘I’ve no idea. There are a few more cardboard boxes up in the attic. I’ll go up and have another look, if you like.’
    Bronson returned about fifteen minutes later carrying another dusty box.
    ‘No other jugs, I’m afraid,’ he announced, ‘but I did find some bits of a broken pot.’
    He placed the box on the table, opened it and pulled out a number of shards of reddish pottery which he spread out in front of Angela.
    She dragged her attention away from the olpe with apparent difficulty and glanced at the fragments.
    ‘Now those probably are first century,’ she said, ‘and most likely Middle Eastern in origin.’
    She picked up a couple of the pieces and fitted them together in her hands. They matched exactly.
    ‘It looks like these might all be part of the same vessel,’ Bronson suggested.
    Angela nodded and picked up a fragment that looked as if it had formed the neck of the broken vessel. In it was a small hole, and in a band around it was a dark brown deposit. Angela picked at this with her thumbnail thoughtfully, then picked up another couple of the broken shards, piecing them together in her hands to reform the neck of the vessel.
    She pressed the pieces together firmly. A few slivers were still missing but she’d found enough of the neck of the ancient pottery jar to see that the hole on one side of