The Lost Labyrinth (10 page)

‘He must have slipped by. I’ll see it doesn’t happen again.’

‘It had better not. And I want a proper presence at that hospital. Anyone nosing around, journalists or anyone, I want people in their faces, I want to know exactly what they’re doing there. We need this damned story closed down before it gets out of hand. You hear me?’

‘Yes, boss. I hear you.’

The Island was boisterous and crowded, all the tables taken, the barstools too, with several more people milling around just inside the door, waiting to be seated. The moustached head waiter flinched a little when he saw Gaille and Knox arrive, as though this level of success was too much for him. He looked around, perhaps hoping that some miracle would create space for another table, but there seemed little chance of that. Apart from anything else, it was an awkward shape for a restaurant, all arches and alcoves and sharp corners, and every possible square inch was already pressed into service, the diners packed so close together that the larger ones had their table-edges jammed into their midriffs.

‘Here!’ yelled Nico, getting to his feet in the far
corner, enthusiastically waving them over. They sucked in their stomachs and wended between tables to an alcove that allowed Nico a bench-seat all to himself. ‘Wine?’ he asked, holding up a half-empty carafe.

‘Please,’ said Gaille.

‘Not for me,’ said Knox.

‘I took the liberty of ordering,’ said Nico, slopping the resinous yellow wine into all three glasses, despite Knox’s answer. ‘I hope you don’t mind.’ He put a hand upon his stomach, as if it were days since he’d last eaten.

‘I’m sure you know what’s best.’

‘I’ve taken another liberty too.’ He reached into his jacket pocket, produced some stapled sheets. ‘Augustin’s speech,’ he said, passing them to Knox, the white paper smeared with sticky fingerprints. ‘In case you should want to read it through later.’

‘Thanks,’ said Knox, folding the pages away. ‘That’s very thoughtful.’

‘Don’t mention it.’ His gaze slid past Knox; his face lit up. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘What perfect timing.’ A waiter and a waitress cleared space upon their table, then began setting down brushed steel platters of succulent seafood, baskets of warm crusty bread and a palette of dips and side-dishes. Nico rested his fingertips upon the edge of the table for a few moments, like a priest about to give a blessing, then reached with surprising grace for the
fried taramasalata, scooping a good third of it straight onto his plate, garnishing it with three grilled king prawns, their blackened pink skins glistening with garlic-butter glaze. He picked one up, bit straight through its crisp shell, his lips glossing with juices. ‘We have the best seafood in the world here in Greece,’ he declared grandly. ‘You know our secret?’

‘What?’

‘Salt!’ he exulted, waving his hand. ‘The Mediterranean is like a great marinade of salt, preparing these fish all their lives for our tables. And still there are people who don’t believe in God!’

Knox smiled. ‘Just a shame we’re not supposed to eat salt any more.’

‘Speak for yourself, my dear boy. Speak for yourself. The great privilege of a condition like mine is that you no longer have to worry about such things.’

‘Condition?’ asked Gaille. ‘What condition?’

‘Forgive me,’ frowned Nico. ‘I assumed you knew. Everyone does. It’s hardly a secret. My heart, you see. Too many steroids as a youth. I was a weight-lifter. A good one, though I say so myself. I had the physique, of course: more wide than tall. Not quite as wide as I am now, admittedly. Useless for football, my other great love, but perfect for weights. We always had weights around the house.
A family tradition. I started lifting before I started reading. I was something of a prodigy, if you can be a prodigy at something so prosaic. I made the national squad when I was fifteen. My coach started talking about the Olympics. I began dreaming of medals. I began dreaming of
gold
. I’d have sold my soul for that. Steroids seemed an insignificant price. Now look!’ He barked out a laugh. ‘And of course I didn’t even make it to the Games. My shoulder popped on me!’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Gaille.

Nico waved away her concern. ‘My own fault. I was a cheat. People keep telling me that I was just a child, too young to make such decisions for myself, that my…my coach must have
bullied
me into it. But I wasn’t
that
young. I knew full well it was cheating. Why else all those furtive trips to our training camps in East Germany? Why else all the sworn secrecy? I didn’t care a jot. In fact, I was more eager than anyone. I
insisted
on it. I thought I was destined, you see. Besides, I’m still alive, aren’t I?’ He spoke in short bursts, and out of one side of his mouth, leaving the other free for eating. He reached across the table with a crust of lavishly buttered bread, scooped up a scallop. ‘It’s my old team-mates I feel sorriest for. They all went long ago. Heart disease from those damned steroids. All but one, at least. He couldn’t bear the waiting any longer, so he used painkillers
instead. It can be a terrible thing, waiting.’ He smiled more brightly, crunched his way through a grilled sardine. ‘That’s one reason I do these conferences. They give me something to think about. Having a purpose, that’s the key. And it seems to work. My doctors keep assuring me I only have a few months left, but then they first told me that seven years ago. So what do they know?’ He laughed and waved a hand. ‘And once you accept the notion, once you get past the
dread
, it’s strangely liberating. No painkillers for me, that’s for sure. I plan to make the most of what I have left.’ He reached across the table for the stuffed crab. ‘Everyone keeps trying to put me on a
regime
. “You mustn’t smoke,” they tell me. “You mustn’t drink. You mustn’t eat so much.” “Why on earth not?” I ask. “I’m doomed anyway, aren’t I? Can’t I at least enjoy myself while I wait?”’ He laughed again, speared some octopus with his fork, chasing the oily coriander sauce around the dish until it glistened and dripped, then chewed hungrily upon it.

‘You take it very well,’ observed Knox. ‘If that had happened to me, I’d have wanted to kill my coach.’

‘Yes, well,’ shrugged Nico. ‘He didn’t know the damage steroids would do. No one did back then.’

‘You were only a child,’ said Gaille angrily. ‘He had a responsibility.’

‘It’s history now.’

‘How can you say that? Is he still alive, this coach of yours?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you still see him?’

He shook his head, from the look of him wishing he hadn’t raised the subject. ‘We had a falling out,’ he said. ‘When Tomas died. My friend Tomas. The one who took the painkillers. My coach…he gave one of the eulogies at his funeral. All those fine words. I don’t know, I didn’t believe them, I suppose; or perhaps I was just angry that he hadn’t paid a price himself. Anyway, I stood up and accused him flat out of murdering Tomas, and of handing me a death sentence too. As you can imagine, that was the last time we spoke.’

‘Good for you.’

Nico didn’t look so sure. He pulled a mournful face. ‘Maybe,’ he said. Then he added, by way of explanation: ‘He wasn’t just my weightlifting coach, you see. He was my father too.’

They took both Mercedes into Athens, Mikhail going in the first with Boris and Davit, leaving Edouard to drive Zaal. At least this way he could turn off his SatNav and just follow the car in front.
It started to cloud over and then spit with rain as they reached the city centre, pedestrians wrapping their jackets tighter around themselves, walking closer to the buildings to take advantage of the awnings and avoid the splash of traffic.

‘Boris says you’ve got twin daughters,’ grunted Zaal.

‘And a son,’ said Edouard proudly.

‘How old are they?’ asked Zaal. ‘The girls, I mean?’

Edouard slid him a sour look. ‘Fifteen. Why?’

‘No reason.’

They pulled up against the kerb outside Evangelismos Hospital. The place was swarming with police. They got out to confer. ‘You know what Knox looks like,’ Mikhail told Edouard. ‘You stay here and watch for him. When he shows, call me.’

‘How am I supposed to do that?’ asked Edouard. ‘Boris took my mobile.’

‘Your father doesn’t want him calling home,’ said Boris, when Mikhail looked to him for an explanation.

‘Fine. Zaal, you stay with him.’

‘Oh, great!’ Zaal shot Edouard a resentful look. ‘Thanks a million.’

‘Where are you guys going?’ asked Edouard.

‘To get something to eat,’ said Mikhail. ‘Why? Is that a problem?’

‘No,’ said Edouard. ‘No problem.’ ‘Good,’ said Mikhail. ‘Then we’ll see you later.’

The lights plunged out in the Island, and in the surrounding streets and buildings too, throwing the restaurant into an almost complete darkness, save for the blue flames of gas in the kitchen, and the headlights of passing traffic. A few diners laughed; others sighed. A woman struck and held up her lighter, making like she was the Statue of Liberty. The staff went smoothly into their practised drill, a waiter lighting oil lamps then hoisting them up with a bamboo pole to hang from ceiling hooks, while a waitress distributed candles among the tables, creating a cosy and romantic atmosphere. ‘Ah, Greece!’ smiled Nico, raising his glass in an impromptu toast. ‘May she never work efficiently.’

‘You said something in the car earlier,’ said Knox, seizing the moment to divert him from his childhood reminiscences. ‘That Augustin might have known about the golden fleece. How come?’

‘I sent photographs of Petitier’s seals to everyone on my speakers list, including your friend. It was a courtesy to explain the change of schedule. So plenty of people might have known about it,
particularly if they knew their Linear B. And I’m not suggesting he did know about the fleece, anyway, only that the police might be able to make a case for it.’ He sat back to allow the waitress to clear their plates. ‘I should have just called them in at once,’ he said ruefully. ‘All my colleagues advised me to.’

‘Really?’ asked Gaille.

Nico nodded. ‘Petitier had no right to those seals. He was legally obliged to notify the authorities rather than jaunting around the world giving talks on them. So, yes, technically I should have informed the police and left it to them. But no one knew where Petitier was or where he’d been living, so it wouldn’t have been easy for them to track him down. And if he’d learned that the police were after him, maybe he’d have gone to ground again, and we’d never have learned what he’d found. And what was the point, after all? He was coming to us anyway, evidently intending to show us his finds and tell us all about them. It seemed unnecessarily vindictive to turn the police on him first.’

The waitress appeared again with three glasses, into which she poured generous shots of Metaxa. ‘There’s something I don’t get,’ said Gaille, once they’d clinked their glasses in a toast. ‘If Petitier really had found the fleece, and wanted to announce it, why not just go to the press? Why choose an archaeological conference?’

Nico nodded, as though he’d wondered this himself. ‘He must have been aware he’d acted illegally. Perhaps he wanted to legitimise himself as far as he could by dressing his announcement up in academic clothes.’

The lights flickered and came back on. Knox blinked and sat back in the sudden brightness, rather regretting the loss of intimacy. ‘But why
this
conference? What has the fleece to do with Eleusis?’

‘More than you might think.’ He looked quizzically at them both. ‘How much do you know about the fleece legend?’

‘Just what you’d expect,’ said Knox.

‘Then let me give you a little background. For one thing, it’s among the oldest of our heroic legends. It’s mentioned in Homer, so it dates back at least to seven or eight hundred B.C., but almost certainly to the late bronze age or even earlier. Essentially, Phrixus and Helle, the twin children of King Athamas, were plotted against by their wicked stepmother Ino, who bribed an oracle to say they had to be sacrificed to end a famine. At the last moment, however, Poseidon sent a golden flying ram to secure their escape. The ram flew them over the sea, but Helle tragically fell off and drowned at the place we now know as the Hellespont. Phrixus made it all the way to Colchis, which is in modern-day Georgia, where he sacrificed the ram in gratitude to Poseidon and hung its fleece in a sacred grove.’

Gaille wrinkled her nose. ‘I’ve always thought that a bit hard on the ram.’

‘Never be an animal in a Greek myth,’ agreed Nico. He covered his mouth with his hand, then produced a deep, long and contented belch. ‘Anyway, the fleece stayed in Georgia until the time of Jason. Jason was the rightful king of Thessaly, of course, but his uncle had taken the throne, which he refused to give up unless Jason first proved himself by bringing back the fleece. Jason built himself a ship, the Argo, then gathered together the cream of Greek heroes, the Argonauts, with whom he set sail for Colchis. They endured the usual misadventures—fire-breathing oxen and dragons and metal giants and so on—but eventually Jason brought the fleece back in triumph to Thessaly, and claimed his throne. And that’s pretty much it, for that fleece, at least.’

‘For
that
fleece?’ asked Gaille.

‘Yes,’ smiled Nico. ‘You see, the thing is, Greek tradition mentions
another
golden fleece. It’s much less well-known, but much more likely to have existed. And the fascinating thing is that it was reputedly kept at Eleusis. Did you know that, so long as they could afford it, anyone who spoke Greek could be initiated at Eleusis, even slaves. But there was
one
exception. People with blood on their hands. That is to say, murderers. Before they could participate, they had to go through a
purification ceremony. The Italians very kindly lent us a vase for the conference depicting Hercules being cleansed. You may have seen it. He’s sitting on a throne, and guess what’s draped over it?’

‘A golden fleece?’ suggested Knox.

‘A golden fleece,’ nodded Nico. ‘And of course the whole thing about Eleusis is that we know so little about what went on during the ceremony. But we do know for sure that several unknown sacred objects were shown to the congregation. Isn’t it possible that the fleece was among them?’