Levkas Man (12 page)

‘Not in charge. But I've been on digs before.'

‘Where?'

‘In Suffolk—Clactonian Man. In Germany and France. Why?' He was frowning. ‘Why are you so interested in this cave? You're not an anthropologist.'

‘No. I'm a ship's officer.' I stared at him, trying to see into his mind, trying to understand. ‘You came out here with a man who's regarded as a brilliant palæontologist and you don't seem to know what his theory is, what he's working towards. Didn't Holroyd brief you?'

‘Of course. And I knew Dr Van der Voort's reputation.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, it's common knowledge. Planting that skull in a dig in Africa. Trying to fool people, and then working for Moscow and twisting his theories to suit the Russians. He may be brilliant. I know some people think so. But it's a damn tricky sort of brilliance.'

‘What was he trying to prove here in Greece? Or don't you know?'

‘Yes, of course I do.'

‘Well?'

‘The Cro-Magnon-Mousterian gap. That's something anthropologists have been puzzling over for years. He had a theory about that. But his main interest was to prove that
homo sapiens sapiens
—modern man—came up from Africa across a mythical land-bridge. It was a complete reversal of all that he had written previously.'

‘You don't agree with him then?'

He hesitated. ‘Well, if you want to know, I think a man should be consistent; he Shouldn't switch his ideas to suit his convenience the way Dr Van der Voort did.'

‘And you didn't believe in it?' I insisted.

The question seemed to worry him. ‘No,' he said finally, ‘No, I didn't.' He said it reluctantly, as though I had forced the admission out of him.

‘Then what's the point of this expedition?'

‘To check. There's always a chance, you know.'

‘An outside chance, as far as you're concerned?'

‘Well, yes, if you like. It's a theory, nothing more. And a pretty wild one. If you knew anything about anthropology you'd realize that.'

I turned to Hans Winters. ‘Is that what you think?'

He stared at me, not saying anything, a stubborn, mulish look on his face.

‘What puzzles me,' I said, turning back to Cartwright, ‘is why Holroyd got him a grant, why he sent you out to spy on him, if there's no basis for his theory.'

‘I w-wasn't spying. I was here to help.' Two angry spots of colour showed in his cheeks.

‘If you'd done that, he wouldn't have disappeared.'

He stared at me, his face flushed. ‘You don't seem to understand what sort of a man Dr Van der Voort is.'

‘I think I do.'

‘He's mad.' He said it almost viciously.

‘He's difficult, I agree. But I've no reason to believe that he's mad.'

‘Then why did he attack me? Suddenly like that, and for no reason.'

‘That's what I came to find out.'

‘He was like a maniac.'

‘I think you'd better explain.' I was keeping a tight rein on my temper. ‘Suppose you tell me exactly what happened?'

He hesitated, staring at me owlishly as though I'd dug a pit for him. ‘There's nothing to tell you,' he said. ‘Nothing you don't know, I imagine. He called me out of my tent. He'd been for his usual walk and I came out and saw him standing there in the moonlight. And then he went for me. No warning—nothing. He just seemed to go berserk. And he had that stick with him, the one he always carries.' He moved his left arm slightly. ‘It broke my wrist.'

‘You wrote to Holroyd that there was an argument.'

‘Did I?' He seemed surprised. ‘I don't remember.' And he added, ‘In fact, I don't remember much about it. I was pretty badly knocked up.'

‘What time was it?'

‘I've told all this to Mr Kotiadis.'

I moved a few steps nearer, staring him in the face, getting a sense of pleasure almost as I saw him shrink back. ‘Well, you're telling it to me now,' I said. ‘Go on. What time did it happen?'

‘Sh shortly after eleven o'clock.'

‘And there was no argument, no altercation?'

‘No.'

‘Do you mean to say he attacked you without a word?'

‘I tell you, I don't remember.'

I couldn't decide whether that was the truth, or whether there was more to it. In the end I left it at that. If there had been a reason for the attack, then he wasn't admitting it—not yet. And with Kotiadis standing there, I felt this wasn't the moment to question him about his telephone call to Athens. I turned to Hans Winters. ‘Where were you when this happened?'

‘In my tent.'

‘And you didn't hear anything?'

‘The first I knew about it was when Alec woke me with blood on his face and in pain from his broken wrist.' And he added, ‘I sleep very heavily.' His manner was surly, and though his English was good, the accent was more pronounced than his sister's.

‘And what did you do then?'

‘I went out to look for Dr Van der Voort.'

‘And by then he'd gone?'

‘Ja. He'd gone. The Land-Rover, too.'

A small wind had sprung up and it was suddenly quite cool. Cartwright was already putting on his shirt, moving away from me. Somewhere on the hillside above us bells were tinkling. ‘Goats?' I asked.

Hans Winters nodded. ‘Ja. Goats.'

The breeze was from the north, carrying the sound with it, but the wide mouth of the cave, with its beetling overhang, blocked all sight of the hillside above. I moved further into the cave, staring about me. The floor was packed hard, dry powdery earth flattened by long ages of occupation, and embedded in it were great slabs of rock fallen from the arch of the overhang. They had cut their trench a little left of centre, from the back right out to the beginning of the drop down into the valley. It was about 3 feet wide and 4 feet deep at the outer edge. The parapet of it came up to Hans Winter's chest. ‘So this is what you call a cave-shelter?'

He nodded.

‘Does that mean occupied by men?'

‘We think so.'

‘How do you know?'

He smiled. ‘We don't yet. In recent years it's been a winter shelter for sheep and goats. The first thing we had to do was to remove the stock fence.' He indicated the stones piled at the side. ‘That was a dry-stone wall—right across the whole mouth of it, three or four feet high.'

I glanced back at Cartwright, but he was now talking to Kotiadis. Down in the valley sheep were moving along the grass at the river's edge. It was like being on a natural balcony, the valley spread out below and a glimpse of purpled mountains across the tops of the hills opposite. ‘Very different sort of country to Holland.' I wanted to get him talking.

‘Ja.' And for the first time I caught a gleam of warmth in his eyes. ‘Is good. I like these hills, the valley. It's very beautiful. But I miss the sea.'

‘The sea's not all that far away,' I said, smiling. He couldn't be more than nineteen and he was homesick. ‘Did my father talk about the islands at all?'

‘Ja, ja. Often. He thought our species of man came up through the islands—the Ionian Islands. Across from Africa and through Sicily.' He glanced quickly towards Cartwright, and seeing that he was out of earshot, he added, ‘Alec doesn't see it that way. He's a flat earth man.' He grinned. It was a grin that lightened the heaviness of his Dutch face, so that for a moment I glimpsed the elfin look his sister had. ‘He's very practical, likes everything straightforward and simple. Dr Van der Voort was a man of ideas, of vision.'

‘Did you like him?'

He stared at me, the warmth fading, the surliness returning. ‘I thought him very interesting, very intelligent. That's why I came on this expedition. I like his ideas.'

‘But you don't like him personally.'

‘No.' He glanced at his watch. ‘Time for lunch,' he said and he put his hands on the edge of the trench and heaved himself out. It was the easy, fluid movement of a man whose muscles are in perfect tune. ‘You coming?' The others were moving off down the slope. He picked up his sweater and started to follow them, tying the sleeves round his neck.

‘Just a moment,' I said. ‘Was it my father who insisted that this cave-shelter was occupied by early man?'

He nodded, pausing. ‘He said it might not prove anything beyond doubt, but for him it was confirmation.'

‘Why?'

̰The situation.' He was standing in silhouette against the sunlight, a thick-set powerful figure, staring down into the valley. ‘The river right at their door,' he said. ‘And it faces south with a good view. That's important—to watch for game and to avoid being surprised by human enemies. And the sun—those early hunters went practically naked. They needed the sun. And they needed water, for themselves and to attract the animals that provided them with food, weapons, tools, fat for their lamps, skins to lie on.'

I had moved to his side, and standing there on that high platform of beaten earth, looking down upon that flock of sheep moving slowly beside the river, I could almost imagine myself, with a skin over my shoulders and a flint axe in my hand, preparing to go down and cut the next meal out.

‘It's a text book situation, you know.' He turned, smiling at me. ‘I'm still a student. I'd never seen a cave-shelter before. But as soon as I saw this place … it's a natural.'

‘You think it's important then?'

He hesitated, his gaze switching to the two figures of Cartwright and Kotiadis moving slowly down the slope towards the river and the olives. ‘I tell you, I'm only a student. But ja—ja, I do. So little work has been done in the Balkans—almost nothing in Greece. And Dr Van der Voort … maybe his theory is wild, as Alec says, but he had a most extraordinary eye for country. All down through Macedonia, in the mountains of Montenegro, and then after we crossed the border into Greece—I watched him, trying to learn, to understand. He seemed to know—instinctively. About the country, I mean. Sometimes he drove the Land-Rover. More often he was walking himself, a queer slouching walk, his head bent, his eyes on the ground or on the lie of the land. It was almost …' He hesitated. ‘I don't know … as though he saw it all with the eyes of prehistoric man. He had that sort of
rapport
with the subject. Identification—ja, that's the word. He was involved, identified, and so completely dedicated, so entirely absorbed …' He grinned as though to cover his unwilling admiration. ‘Maybe it's just because I'd never worked with a real expert before.'

‘Cartwright said you didn't find anything very much.'

‘Oh yes, we found traces here and there—quite a few things, chert flakes mainly. But nothing Dr Van der Voort thought worth while. Not until we came here. And it wasn't only the situation that excited him. Come and look at this.' He took me to the back of the cave, to the blackened curve of the rock. ‘Alec is not convinced. He thinks it may be water seepage. But Dr Van der Voort insisted that the discoloration was carbon deposit from the smoke of open hearths.' He put his hand on the rock face. ‘Feel that. Feel how smooth it is. That's calcium. A thick layer of it overlying the fire marks and acting as a protective coating. It's caused by water seeping down from the limestone overhead, and if we knew when it had happened, how fast it had built up, we'd know how old the fire marks are. Dr Van der Voort thought ten thousand years at least.'

‘Did he give any reason?'

He shook his head. ‘No, he didn't say. But you can see here where he chipped a bit out with the small geological hammer he always had with him.' The calcium coating was almost an inch thick, opaque like cathedral glass. ‘What he was hoping for, of course, was a hearth burial. They used to leave their dead beside their hearths and move on. At least, that's what the books say. And then wind-blown earth gradually covered the body—a natural burial. But there's a lot of work to do before we get anywhere near that level.'

We were standing on the lip of the trench and at the back here it was less than two feet deep with rock showing at the bottom.

‘We're in trouble already, you see. Big slabs fallen from the roof. They'll take a lot of shifting. And out near the edge of the platform, where the earth is softer, we are already having to widen the trench to prevent it from collapsing.' He glanced at his watch again. ‘Well, let's go and eat. I don't know about you, but I'm hungry.' He picked up his shirt and we started down the slope. The breeze was stronger now and quite cool, but he didn't seem to notice it.

‘I gather your sister has joined you.'

‘Ja. She is come four days ago.'

‘Why?'

He looked at me, his pale eyes suddenly hostile. ‘Sonia can be very obstinate at times. And she has money of her own.'

‘That doesn't answer my question.'

‘Well, you ask her yourself.' And he muttered, ‘That old devil had a sort of fascination for her.'

‘You mean my father?'

‘Dr Van der Voort—ja. It's not healthy for her. He may be a very clever palæontologist, but he's a damned strange old man.' And when I asked him what he meant by that, he rounded on me. ‘You should know. You're his son and you haven't been near him for years.'

He closed up after that, and a few minutes later we arrived at the camp. She was standing by the stone hearth, looking more like a boy than ever in a pale shirt and very short shorts, and all she said was ‘Hullo!', as though we had parted only that morning. And then she turned back to her cooking, reaching for a wooden spoon, and in doing so dislodged a packet of biscuits. She bent down to retrieve it, the curve of her buttocks stretching the flimsy shorts. I saw Cartwright staring, a sly look that was somehow unexpected in an academic. He glanced round, caught my eye—a satyr with glasses and a schoolboy flush. My feeling of dislike intensified.