The Atlantis Keystone (15 page)

“Did you have a good time? Did you see anything of Paul at all while you were there?”

“Yes, I had a great time and I actually saw a lot of both Paul and his colleague Mary. Athens certainly is an exciting place. How was your last couple of days?”

Emma was too bored with it even to talk about it, so after a quick comment about her progress she suggested that they cook something nice and share a bottle of wine. Erik was no star in the kitchen and neither was she. They managed to produce some over-cooked pasta and a somewhat runny Carbonara sauce.

“This sauce tastes exceptionally good with the wine”, Erik commented with a silly smile from the opposite side of the kitchen table. Emma laughed hysterically at the fact that he really seemed to enjoy the food. He had even managed to get some of it around his mouth, making him look like a naughty little boy. How she liked his company.

A bottle and a half later, plates and glasses empty, she was annoyed to find herself unsteady and dizzy. Erik, on the other hand, seemed largely unaffected, chatting away about his visit to Athens. She even lost her concentration at one stage and forgot to pay attention to what he was saying.

“…. And for that matter, I certainly had my suspicions before she told me but I was surprised to have it confirmed.”

“I’m sorry, what suspicion did you get confirmed?” She felt guilty for having lost the plot.

Erik sounded a little bit annoyed: “That Paul is hiding something. That he potentially had something to do with the theft of the tablet!”

Emma was utterly confused. This talk about suspecting Paul of the break-in; it was absurd. “Are you saying that this woman, his colleague, Mary, has confirmed to you that Paul stole the chest?”

“Well, not exactly. She said that Paul cannot be trusted and that he may have a source who knows more about the Torpa tablet than he has told us”.

“And how can she know that, may I ask? Maybe she had an ulterior motive to try to get you to think ill of Paul, or maybe you read more into what she said than you were meant to. You might even have imagined it, for all I know. I for one can’t believe any rubbish accusation like that; you and she clearly don’t know Paul at all! He’s been nothing but a friend to you. How can you dismiss him so easily? He wasn’t even in the country when the break-in happened!”

Erik looked annoyed but Emma would not take him insulting Paul after all he’d done for him. With that she stood up and left the room. For a second she wondered where she would storm off to. With the open plan living space there was no opportunity to storm out dramatically behind a slamming door, other than to go outside. In a flash, or at least after what she thought was less than a seconds’ hesitation, she decided to go upstairs and go straight to bed. She slammed the door to her bedroom but by then it had sort of lost its effect, especially when she went straight back out again, realising that the bathroom was down the hall. She hoped that at least with her display of disgust at his accusation she had made her point; that she wasn’t prepared to distrust Paul, at least not without any hard evidence. From what she had heard from Erik, the finger pointing was based on loose theories and assumptions. And who did this Mary think she was; she had never heard of any Mary.

▪ ▪ ▪

Waking up the next morning was not a pleasant experience. It was Saturday, which was nice but in addition to a banging headache and acute thirst, Emma felt awful about her behaviour towards Erik the night before. She was still convinced that any accusation in Paul’s direction was wholly unfounded – there must have been some sort of misunderstanding. She knew him too well; he would never do anything to risk his untarnished reputation and respected position as an Oxford professor. It would be so completely out of character that she felt she would need extremely strong evidence to the contrary to believe any of the accusations against him. She put on a dressing gown and went downstairs.

Paul, Ball and Laura were not expected back until that afternoon so Emma was hoping she might have the kitchen to herself for a while to ponder her thoughts. Unfortunately for her, Erik was already up and having breakfast at the kitchen table, reading a Swedish newspaper. She silently wondered how he had got hold of a Swedish paper in a remote villa on Crete but she didn’t voice her question. Instead she decided to apologise for her behaviour the night before, blaming the wine which seemed to have gone straight to her head.

“Well,” he said, “I know how you feel about Paul and I probably shouldn’t have blurted everything out the way I did. I could have given Paul the benefit of doubt but with Mary confirming my suspicion I thought you might agree with me.”

This annoyed Emma once again. “Excuse me, I’ve never met Mary! In fact, I didn’t even know of her existence until a few of days ago. For all I know, you could have made her up.” She got the desired reaction from Erik; he was irritated with this response.

“Hold on a second. Mary is a respected professor of ancient history. She even used to be a lecturer at Oxford before she transferred temporarily over to Athens two years ago.”

“I’ve been at Oxford for nearly four years and I’ve certainly never heard of a professor called Mary. What’s her surname?”

“Brown. Ring any bells? Professor Brown?”

“No actually. Well, I might not know everyone then, if you’re sure she was at Oxford.” Erik didn’t answer. Instead he walked outside to the pool with his Swedish paper, grabbing a towel on the way, taking off his T-shirt and sinking into the deck chair without uttering another word. It was once again far too cold for sunbathing but he didn’t seem to mind.

It suddenly occurred to Emma that Erik might have tried to make her angry with Paul for some reason. Although she could not understand it, she had seen indications that Erik might have feelings for her. A couple of times she had noticed it. In stark contrast with her, he was one of those popular beautiful people who could get anything they wanted. Why on earth he would even consider forming some sort of liking towards her was, for her, completely incomprehensible. Some sort of strange misdirected jealousy could have made him imagine odd things about Paul, or, even worse, he could have fabricated lies about Paul. Her general opinion of Erik was only positive but of course she didn’t know him as well as she knew Paul. Erik had always been very genuine and a real gentleman. She found it hard to believe that he would do anything maliciously. But people could change for all she knew, especially in the face of jealousy.

Emma and Erik didn’t speak all day after that. It was strange to see him so gloomy. He was normally always cheery, not far away from laughing, often at his own shortcomings and mistakes. Emma very much liked that streak in him, as it made her laugh as well. She wasn’t pleased with their falling out. By reason of the uncomfortable silence, Emma felt an enormous relief when she heard a car approaching the house late afternoon. A few moments later, Laura and Ball entered, shouting hello. Erik immediately got up to greet them, without looking at Emma as he did so. Emma followed him. In Laura and Ball’s presence they both pretended as if their quarrel had never happened. The four of them sat down on the sofas to share experiences.

“Having seen the remains of the lost Minoan city on Santorini, I’m getting more and more convinced by the Crete-Atlantis theory,” Laura proclaimed excitedly. “This is after all the most accepted Atlantis theory in modern times. There are obviously still points which don’t add up but I now feel that it’s at least not an outlandish assumption to make; that Plato used the forgotten civilisation on Thera and Crete as inspiration for his story about Atlantis.”

“What makes you think so?” Emma asked with interest.

“Mainly the fact that parts of the Island disappeared, which ties in well with the statement in Plato’s writings that Atlantis was ‘submerged by the waves’. Other than that, just things like the hot and cold water and the general description of the place. I do have a few doubts though, I should add.”

“What’s your main objection?” Erik asked.

“The Atlanteans are described as a warlike people. They conquered large parts of the Mediterranean and were focussed on warfare. This doesn’t tie in at all with the understanding we have of the Minoans. Also, the location of it. Atlantis was supposed to have been located near the Pillars of Hercules, in the Atlantic Ocean. Not in the eastern Mediterranean. But that doesn’t exclude the possibility that the Minoans were in some way related to the Atlanteans…” She fell silent as if in deep thought.

As it turned out, Ball had also had a good time. First and foremost he had been involved in some work with a group of scientists who had measured the magnitude of the eruption by mapping debris of lava scattered in the area surrounding the island.

“I’ve made up my mind to do another thesis on the Thera eruption. It intrigues me and it seems to me that far from all measurements have been taken. The much more recent eruption of Krakatoa is obviously better documented and easier to study but I still think that not everything that can be done has been done on Thera. I mean, we’re talking about one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of all times, as far as we’ve been able to tell so far. I’m going to spend the next week studying the coastal areas of Crete.”

It was all very encouraging for them. Emma and Erik didn’t mention anything about their argument, or Erik’s suspicions about Paul. Emma decided to tell them that she was going to ask to finish off her translation work on Monday, so that she could concentrate on writing her thesis. They all sympathised with her decision.

“When is Paul coming back?” Laura asked as the sun had started to go down later that day. “I thought he was coming back today as well.”

“Yes, he is”, Emma confirmed, although she suddenly felt unsure as she seemed to remember that his plane was due in at five in the afternoon. It was then already nine o’clock. Was the plane really four hours delayed? It would take no time at all for Paul to go from Heraklion airport to the house so there could be no delays there. “Does anyone know when he was supposed to arrive? I thought it was five o’clock?”

“Yes it was”, Erik confirmed as he had asked Paul about it a couple of days ago. They all got concerned. Paul should have arrived. A quick look on the internet confirmed that there were no delays or events that might have caused him problems. In fact, the plane which Paul should have been on had landed on time.

“I suppose he could have missed the plane or gone somewhere on Crete; maybe he had someone to see”, Laura suggested and they all agreed that was more likely. There were plenty of possibilities and there was no reason to think that Paul was in any danger.

▪ ▪ ▪

Paul had still not arrived when they got up the next morning. By then, Emma was worried. He had not answered his mobile phone – she had tried three times and left messages. It went straight to answer phone. How could he be so careless as to not let them know where he was? She was concerned that something may have happened to him. Her fall-out with Erik didn’t help either. She knew that under normal circumstances he would have been a great comfort, telling her not to worry and keeping her sane. Now he was ignoring her, directing anything he said to either Ball or Laura, only occasionally addressing her when it seemed necessary in order not to reveal their quarrel to the others. It was silly really. She didn’t want to be angry with him but every time she thought about his ludicrous accusations against Paul, she saw red. Paul had been nothing but nice to Erik. It disturbed her that he could mistrust him in this way, although she had to admit that it was odd that he had still not returned.

It was one o’clock in the afternoon and Emma was just about to try to call Paul again when the front door opened and Paul entered, looking worse for wear and tired. His hair was a mess, almost standing up, and he was wearing an old thick woolly jumper which seemed out of place in the lovely spring sunshine. Emma could not help herself. She ran up to him and threw herself in his arms, kissing him hard on the mouth. He didn’t return the kiss but Emma knew that was only because they were not alone.

“Where have you been?! We’ve been worried sick!” she blurted out.

“I’m sorry if you were worried about me but I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile to let you know I’d be later than you expected.” he said. He looked tired but happy and smiled as he said “…and I have a surprise!” They were intrigued to find out what he had been up to, why he was late, why he looked the way he did and above all what this ‘surprise’ was all about. Paul was exhausted. Emma led him to the sofa and they sat down around him. She got him a glass of juice and after he had finished it in one gulp he finally seemed to have the strength to speak.

“I’ve travelled for several hours. I wanted to get here as quickly as possible but I encountered some problems on the way. My ‘surprise’ is moored in the harbour down there.” He signalled in the direction of the sea. “It seemed like a good idea at the time but now I’m not so sure.”

“Did you sail here alone from mainland Greece?” Erik enquired with an astonished expression.

“Well, almost. I borrowed a fast yacht! Unfortunately I ran out of petrol and had to hail a passing ferry. It was all a bit of a nightmare but I got here eventually, with the boat and all. It was a little bit further than I thought.”

They all had a moment contemplating what he had said. Emma thought the whole thing was a bit bizarre.

Erik evidently had the same thoughts and asked: “Am I missing something? Why did you borrow a boat to get here; why not simply fly? I’m sure there would have been boats to rent here on Crete if you wanted to take us all out for a ride.”