The Lost Labyrinth dk-3 Page 15

  'I'm sure you've all heard by now of the terrible events of yesterday afternoon,' began Nico. 'My first instinct, of course, was to cancel today's proceedings. But you good people have come so far for this conference, and it's so rare to have so many of the world's great authorities on Eleusis in one venue, that I felt we owed it to scholarship to persevere, however tragic the circumstances. And I'm glad, to judge by this excellent turnout, that so many of you agree.'

  All the talks were being filmed for posterity, and the cameraman now swept the audience. It gave Knox an idea. Anyone at yesterday afternoon's talk had an ironclad alibi for Petitier's murder, with the Athens hotel a good forty minutes away. But anyone not there had some explaining to do, particularly if-

  His name was called out suddenly. He looked up to see Nico beckoning. There was a polite smattering of applause that grew louder as he walked across and shook Nico's hand. He oriented himself at the podium, checked the controls and the teleprompter.

  Over the years Knox had known Augustin, he'd come to take his friendship for granted. You did that with people like Augustin, because they never made a point of it, they never asked for anything in return. He had a sudden vision of him in the ICU, his face swollen, his skull fractured, fighting for his life; yet at the same time he had the strongest sense of his presence here in the pavilion, watching him right now, his arms sardonically folded, as though to make sure that he'd do him justice. And suddenly what Knox had seen as a chore to pay back Nico for helping get him out of gaol took on a different aspect. Augustin had talked lightly about this lecture, but it had been his chance to prove himself to the world outside Alexandria, and he'd worked his heart out on it. He'd rewritten it countless times, had rehearsed it endlessly. But now he was lying in an ICU bed, and-brutal though it was to acknowledge-this talk could yet prove his memorial. Knox owed it to him to make it fitting.

  An earthquake had struck off the coast of Alexandria several months before. Not severe, as these things went, barely enough to shake dust from the plaster, rattle a roof or two, make people smile nervously at each other as they hurried out their front doors. But it had also put a crack in an old block of flats overlooking the Nouzha gardens, and a week later the facade of the building had groaned and then simply sheered away. The property had duly been condemned and destroyed. A bulldozer had revealed an underground chamber. The Supreme Council for Antiquities in Alexandria had called in Augustin, and he in turn had called in Knox and Gaille.

  Now he played edited highlights on the giant screen of Gaille's footage of that first exploration, jumping and bumping as they clambered over rubble and debris, the hazy white flare of flashlights playing over the loculi and detritus on the floor, human bone and the occasional fragment of pottery glowing palely against the darker dirt. He didn't speak, just let the atmosphere build. It was one of the great privileges of archaeology, exploring such sites for the first time in hundreds or even thousands of years. But finally he sensed his moment. 'Behold the Alexandrian district of Eleusis,' he began. 'They call them the Mysteries. But in Egypt, at least, thanks to my good friend Augustin Pascal, they may not be that way for very much longer.'

  IV

  They found Knox's Citroen parked on the cobbles outside the site entrance. Edouard backed into a nearby space, the quicker to get away, then he and Zaal went over to the other Mercedes, from which Boris and Davit were climbing out. The rear window hummed down; Mikhail beckoned from within. They all went over. Mikhail had his trousers unzipped and down around his thighs, Edouard was startled to see, and the hooker's face was buried in his lap. 'Well, boss?' asked Zaal, not skipping a beat. 'What now?'

  Mikhail pointed to a nearby cafe, its garden overlooking the car park. 'Go wait for me in there,' he said. 'Order me coffee and an ouzo. I'll be with you in a minute.' The window hummed back up.

  They took a corner table with a view of the site's entrance and the cars. Edouard watched in fascination as Mikhail's Mercedes started to rock back and forth, the shock of passers-by at the shadow theatre behind the tinted windows. The sheer contempt for others, to fuck a hooker in broad daylight; how Edouard envied that. Climax arrived and passed; the Mercedes fell still. A few more moments passed and then the rear door opened and the hooker got out, her jacket slung over her shoulder, picking at her crotch and wobbling a little as she walked, her high heels unsuitable for the cobbles. Mikhail himself emerged a few moments later. He checked his reflection in the tinted glass, straightened his collar, then headed towards the cafe.

  Boris' mobile began to ring at that moment. He answered it, then passed it to Edouard. 'For you,' he said.

  'You have my answers for me?' asked Sandro bluntly.

  'You have my wife for me?' responded Edouard.

  'She's here now. You have thirty seconds.'

  'Nina?' he asked eagerly. 'Are you okay?'

  'I'm fine,' she assured him, though her tone sounded guarded. 'We went out riding this morning. Even Kiko. It was the first time he's been out since that time with Nicoloz Badridze.'

  'Nicoloz Badridze?' frowned Edouard, shifting up to make room for Mikhail. 'You don't mean-'

  'Yes,' she said. 'Nicoloz Badridze. But don't worry. Uncle Ilya rode beside him all the time, he kept his hand upon his arm, so there was no chance of him falling. We're all having a fine old time. Do you understand?'

  'Yes,' said Edouard hollowly. 'I understand. Tell the children I'm thinking of them.'

  'Of course. We'll hear from you again soon, I hope.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'I'll do everything I-'

  'That's thirty seconds,' said Sandro, taking back the phone. 'Now tell me about my fleece.'

  It took Edouard a moment to clear his mind and focus. 'Listen,' he said. 'We'll never get away with this if people's first reaction is disbelief. I mean, once they start laughing, they never stop. So it has to be credible. Forget about a fleece that's made of gold but which handles like sheepskin. It's too improbable and too technically challenging, both for the ancient Georgians and for us. But I have another idea. It won't be as spectacular, but it'll be far more plausible.'

  'Go on.'

  'Metals were hugely important commodities in the ancient world. Silver, tin, bronze, copper, iron, you name it. They were all shipped around the Mediterranean in ingots, sometimes shaped like bricks but just as often in flat rectangles with small protrusions at each corner, maybe to make them easier to carry, but which look undeniably like animal skins.'

  'Ah!' said Sandro.

  'Exactly. Archaeologists call them ox-hide ingots: but actually they look more like sheepskins. And there's no reason at all why one of these ingots couldn't have been made of gold. And if it was made of ancient Colchian gold…'

  Silence as Sandro considered it. 'I suppose it will do,' he said finally. 'Can you get us details?'

  'We have pictures and specifications of several on the Museum Intranet. I can email them to you as soon as I get to a computer.'

  'Forget that. Just give me your log-in details.'

  Edouard sighed. With people like the Nergadzes, you got in ever deeper and deeper. He gave him what he wanted, handed the phone back to Boris. Their drinks had arrived: his coffee cup rattled a little as he picked it up, thinking again of his conversation with his wife, of the name she'd mentioned. Nicoloz Badridze! He'd hoped never to hear of him again. The man was a paedophile, released after twenty years in prison to be housed in an apartment block just a few doors from their Tbilisi home. The knowledge that such a monster was living so close to their twins became unbearable to them. They'd finally sold up and moved, feeling unutterably guilty because the buyers had had a daughter of their own, and they hadn't said a word. Neither he nor his wife had ever mentioned Badridze's name since.

  Not until now.

  He rocked forward from his waist, until the rim of the table pressed against his chest like an incipient heart attack. Ilya Nergadze out riding with Kiko, his hand upon his arm. He remembered suddenly Ilya's remark about his charming son, and that
beautiful lady-boy serving champagne on the plane. Christ! What had he exposed his beloved son to?

  More to the point, what was he going to do about it?

  EIGHTEEN

  I

  Gaille went into the petrol station to pay while Iain filled his tank. 'You're already doing so much for me,' she said, when he came in. 'You must let me pay for this.'

  'Too kind.' He got out some money anyway, to buy mints and a packet of sweets. 'I've got a bit of a throat,' he explained. 'All this talking; I'm not used to it.'

  'Then they're on me too. You wouldn't be talking if I wasn't asking.'

  'You'll spoil me.'

  'I think that ship has sailed.'

  They laughed together as they went back out to the car. Iain opened the sweets and poured them haphazardly into the coin-tray between them, then grabbed a mint for himself and squeezed it between thumb and forefinger until it squirted out of its wrapper straight into his mouth. 'Where were we?' he asked.

  'You'd just proved Minoan Crete was Atlantis.'

  'Ah, scepticism. An academic's best friend.'

  'It's always served me well. Especially on questions that can't be answered.'

  He leaned forward to make sure there was no traffic coming, pulled out onto the road. 'I wouldn't be so sure of that. I mean, all those points of correspondence I just gave you must mean something. And then there are the inadvertent clues in Plato.'

  'Inadvertent clues?'

  'Sure. You know the kind of thing. Like that story in Herodotus, about the pharaoh who wanted to circumnavigate Africa. He commissioned some Phoenicians to sail south down the east coast, then back up the west.' He sucked on his mint a couple of times, then switched it from cheek to cheek. 'They reappeared three years later, claiming they'd done it. But Herodotus openly mocked them, because they said the sun had been to their right when they'd rounded the cape, when everyone knew that Africa didn't extend south of the equator. But of course we now know it does extend south of the equator, which makes pretty compelling evidence that they did actually complete the circumnavigation properly.'

  'And there are similar details in Plato's account of Atlantis, are there?'

  He nodded vigorously. 'People forget that the story of Atlantis is also the story of Athens, because it was the Athenians who led the fight against Atlantis. Plato and his contemporaries didn't know much about early bronze age Athens, other than for a few anecdotes in Thucydides. Yet Plato's account of Atlantis includes remarkably accurate details about bronze age Greek cities.' He popped another mint, gestured expressively at his throat. 'And he mentions a spring in the Acropolis, for example, blocked up by an earthquake. There was no such spring in his time, yet archaeologists found one back in the 1930s. How could he have known about that? Was it really just a lucky guess?'

  'It's hardly proof of Atlantis.'

  'No, but it makes his account worth taking seriously. And who knows what's still out there, just waiting to be found? It's one of the reasons I love hiking in the mountains here so much; there's still every chance of discovering an important new site. And if not here, there's always Santorini. There are still whole Pompeiis to rediscover beneath the volcanic ash. What if we found something specifically mentioned by Plato? A scene from his story represented in a frieze, say. Or that golden statue of Poseidon in a chariot pulled by six winged horses. Or some of the hundred Nereids upon their dolphins? Would those be enough for you?'

  'Sure. If you found them.'

  'Maybe we already have. Or traces of them, at least. You'd be amazed by how many artefacts we've recovered at Knossos that we've barely even looked at, let alone studied. Who can say what treasures aren't waiting for us among them?'

  'I'm surprised you could tear yourself away,' smiled Gaille.

  'Hey,' he grinned. 'Who can say what treasures aren't waiting for us at Petitier's place, either?'

  II

  The lighting was so low in the pavilion that it was only when Knox brought up the brighter of his slides that he could see the faces in the first few rows, hushed and leaning forward in their seats. He made a joke that earned far more laughter than it deserved, and he felt the heady confidence of a speaker whose talk was going well. He didn't rely on the teleprompter anything like as much as he'd anticipated; in a strange way, it was as though he was merely a conduit, allowing his friend to speak.

  It came almost as a shock to him when he reached the end and the teleprompter showed blank. He hadn't given any great thought to how to wrap it up, so he paid a short impromptu tribute to Augustin, then thanked his audience for their time and attention. There was silence for a moment or two, as though everyone else had been taken by surprise too. The silence lasted just long enough to unnerve him, make him feel that he'd misread how well it had gone. But then the applause started and began to swell, and it was like nothing Knox had ever heard before, certainly not at so formal a conference. A woman rose to her feet, and then a man, then pockets of people everywhere, and suddenly the whole auditorium was on the rise, cheering and clapping and stamping their feet, not for him, Knox knew, or even for the talk; but for Augustin, and all the unsung work he'd done in Alexandria over the years, wanting to show that they didn't for one moment believe the police slurs against him.

  Nico came over to join him at the podium. 'How the hell am I supposed to follow that?' he muttered with mock gloom.

  Knox laughed and nodded at the cameraman. 'You're making recordings, yes?'

  'Of course. Would you like one?'

  'Not for me. But I think Claire should know how well Augustin's talk went down.'

  Nico nodded emphatic agreement. 'Good idea. I'll take care of it myself.'

  'Thanks.' The applause still thundered on, like at a party conference. He used the moment to put to Nico his thought about checking yesterday's absentees against people who knew about the golden fleece.

  'I wondered that myself,' admitted Nico. 'But everyone was here. Everyone but Augustin, at least. And Antonius, of course.'

  'Antonius?'

  'An old colleague from the university. An authority on early scripts, which is why I thought he might be able to help. But he was never going to show up. He's turned into a recluse, I'm afraid. He barely ever leaves his house.'

  'Not even for a conference like this?'

  'No.' But he looked thoughtful. 'You think I should call him?'

  'It's an idea.'

  'I'll do it in a moment.' He nodded at the audience, the applause finally beginning to slacken. 'You'll take a few questions first, yes?'

  'A few,' agreed Knox. 'But then I really do need to get back to Athens.'

  NINETEEN

  I

  Iain and Gaille headed back up into the highlands, passing through picturesque mountain villages and towns before turning left towards Plakias. The rocky flanks of the Kourtaliotiko gorge towered above them, giving Gaille mild tingles of vertigo as she stared upwards. A glimpse of whitewashed wall offered testimony to the Greek inability to pass a mountain ledge without building a church upon it. They soon left the gorge behind, to her relief, but within just a few more miles they'd reached a second, the narrow winding road strewn with fallen rocks and stones. 'Christ!' she muttered, as Iain slalomed casually between them, taking her uncomfortably close to the edge. 'How many of these damned gorges are there?'

  'Lots,' he grinned. He pointed down at the floor of the car. 'The African and European tectonic plates meet right beneath us. This whole island's the result; and these gorges are the places where the crust's split under all that pressure.'

  'Like snapping open a baguette?' suggested Gaille.

  'If you like.'

  The road wound tortuously on. Clusters of houses clung grimly to steep slopes, like climbers who'd ventured beyond their competence, and frozen. The roads were narrow and in poor repair; just as well there was so little traffic. They reached a coastal plain, passed the quiet resort of Frangocastello and the cove port of Hora Sfakion, before climbing a cliff road so steep that it seem
ed to Gaille like a strand of spaghetti thrown against a wall. The hairpin bends grew tighter with each turn. She felt nauseous and her feet clenched with cramp. Heights didn't seem to bother Iain at all; he took the corners with lazy calm, even as their tyres skidded on the dusty tarmac, taking them perilously close to the edge. 'Please,' begged Gaille, clutching the door handle. 'I hate heights.'

  'Don't worry,' he assured her. 'I drive these roads all the time.'

  'Please,' she said again.

  Her tone got through to him. He took his foot off the accelerator, shifted away from the edge. They were already amazingly high, the richly coloured houses and boats of Hora Sfakion like toys on the rugged, fractal coastline below, while the sea was an astonishing colour, the rich blue of a hyacinth macaw. The road degenerated into a stretch of raw bedrock. A dump-truck full of tarmac swung recklessly fast around the corner ahead, forcing them out so wide that Gaille could see nothing beneath her but drop. Hot choking dust blasted through their open windows, sending them both into coughing fits. And still they climbed higher and higher, until Gaille couldn't bear it any more, just sat back in her seat and closed her eyes.

  'It's okay,' said Iain at length. 'We're past.'

  She opened her eyes to see hills either side of her, removing even the possibility of falling. Her vertigo at once abated, though she still felt a little sick. They reached a small town with a tranquil square. 'Anapoli,' said Iain, pulling up outside a general store. 'I'll go in and ask about Petitier. You stay here. They're less likely to open up with a foreigner around.'