The Lost Labyrinth (13 page)

‘Okay. Go on.’

‘Now imagine it from someone else’s perspective. Imagine you’re sitting in the lobby. Nico has emailed you photos of Petitier’s seals, or maybe you’ve just heard whispers. But suddenly you see the man himself clutching his bag and looking nervous as hell.
Jesus!
you think.
Maybe there’s something to this after all
. Your whole life you’ve been hoping to find something extraordinary; or maybe you’re getting on a bit and you’ve got nothing saved. You
want
that fleece. You
covet
it. You’ve
earned
it by dedicating your life to archaeology. You follow Petitier to the lifts. He tries to shake you off by going to Augustin’s room, but you manage to trail him somehow, and you hear Augustin inviting him inside. Maybe you’ve got a nearby room. Or you know someone who does. Whatever, you’re still lurking nearby when I arrive twenty minutes later and take Augustin off to the airport, leaving Petitier on his own.
And then, through the door, you hear the shower come on.’

‘Not through the door,’ said Gaille. ‘The CCTV would have picked it up.’

‘Through the wall, then.’ He nodded at their own bathroom. ‘I mean, we can hear everything our neighbours get up to. Presumably it’s the same one floor down.’

‘So I hear the shower start,’ agreed Gaille. ‘It’s my opportunity.’

‘Exactly,’ said Knox. ‘You may never get another. You go out onto your own balcony and see Augustin’s door is open. It’s a muggy afternoon, after all. It’s not easy to climb across, but it’s not that hard either, not with this kind of prize waiting. The shower’s still running. You sneak inside and take Petitier’s bag from the bed and turn to flee, but Petitier hears you and charges out of the shower. He chases you onto the balcony where you wrestle over the bag. It rips open. There’s an artefact inside, solid and heavy. You pick it up and smash him over the head. He goes down hard, though he manages to crawl inside in an effort to get to the phone. But you think he’s dead, so you flee back to your room, taking your prize with you.’

‘A hell of a risk.’

‘But plausible, right?’

‘More plausible than Augustin doing it,’ acknowledged Gaille. ‘So one of our fellow guests, then? Maybe one of Augustin’s neighbours.’

‘It’s possible.’

‘Or what about those guys in the lift?’

‘Maybe they
are
his neighbours.’

She gave an expressive little shudder. ‘You think we should tell someone?’

He considered it a moment, imagined trying to explain his theory to that antagonistic Chief Inspector, the scorn he’d come in for. ‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s too late. I’ll run it by Charissa tomorrow, see what she thinks.’ He was sufficiently unnerved to check again that their door was locked, and the balcony too. Then he stripped down to his boxer shorts, stretched out on the bed, took out his copy of Augustin’s talk, and began to read it through.

Any hopes Edouard had that Mikhail would give up on Knox for the night were quickly extinguished. They went to the hotel bar, took a corner table, ordered a round of firewater and discussed ways of getting Knox to open his door, despite his now being clearly on alert. ‘Let’s just blast his door with your shotgun,’ grinned Zaal.

Edouard looked appalled at him. ‘Keep your voice down,’ he begged.

‘Why? You really think someone here speaks Georgian?’

‘You never know.’

‘Why don’t we start a fire?’ joked Boris. ‘That’ll get them down.’

‘Actually,’ said Mikhail thoughtfully. ‘That’s not such a bad idea.’

‘Are you crazy!’ hissed Edouard. ‘There must be hundreds of people staying here.’

‘We don’t actually have to start a fire,’ said Mikhail, with exaggerated patience. ‘We only need to set off the alarm. All the guests will come down and gather outside, including our two friends. We’ll just grab them when they appear.’

‘It won’t be easy,’ observed Boris. ‘Lots of other people around.’

‘So let’s go up to their floor first,’ suggested Zaal. ‘We’ll set the alarm off and wait for them to open their door.’

‘What if we’re seen?’ asked Edouard.

‘What if we’re seen,’ mimicked Zaal, earning himself a laugh.

‘I only—’

‘We’re doing it,’ said Mikhail, knocking back his drink. ‘Unless you’ve got a better idea, of course.’

Edouard hung his head. ‘No.’

‘Then shut up.’ He got to his feet; the others too. Only Edouard stayed seated. ‘You too,’ said Mikhail.

‘I’m really not cut out for—’

‘I said, you too.’

He rose reluctantly, followed them to the lifts. He couldn’t think why Mikhail would want him along, other than it gave him pleasure to make people do the things they hated. But that was reason enough. The lattice gate closed on him like a gaol-term. The lift shuddered and began to ascend. The idea that Knox and Bonnard had anything to do with Petitier’s death was patently ridiculous; only not to Mikhail. He took it for granted that everyone was as innately vicious and covetous as himself. They reached the sixth floor. The gate opened. With a sinking heart, Edouard made to follow the others out. It was only at the last moment that he noticed the amended conference itinerary taped to the mirror. He didn’t have time to think things through, he simply grabbed it and thrust it at Mikhail. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘Knox is giving a talk in the morning.’

‘So?’

‘So he’ll be the third person associated with this damned conference to come to harm. The girl will make four. The police will go crazy.’ He jabbed a finger at the CCTV cameras. ‘And look at all those, for Christ’s sake. We’ll be caught in no time. Besides, Knox won’t have the fleece here, will he? Remember what that policeman said? He and Pascal took it to the airport in a bag. I’ll bet you anything they hid it out there. And he certainly
won’t go for it until after his talk, not while he’s still a suspect.’

‘What if it
is
his talk?’ asked Mikhail. ‘What if he unveils my fleece at this conference? What then?’

‘He’d have to be mad,’ replied Edouard. ‘How else could he have got it, other than by murdering Petitier?’

There was silence for a few moments, as they considered this. ‘He’s got a point, boss,’ said Boris grudgingly.

‘And that’s not even the main thing,’ said Edouard, pressing his advantage. ‘The main thing is that we know exactly where he’s going to be tomorrow. We can wait for him to finish and then pick him up and do whatever we like with him. And no one will even know that he’s gone.’

Mikhail frowned as he thought it through. Then his expression cleared. ‘Yes,’ he said, as though it had been his idea. ‘We’ll wait till after his talk. We know exactly where he’s going to be, after all.’

‘Yes, boss,’ nodded Zaal. ‘Good thinking.’

They turned together for the lift. A bead of sweat trickled down Edouard’s flank. Catastrophe averted, for tonight at least. But what the hell was he going to do tomorrow?

Knox was struggling to concentrate on Augustin’s talk. Gaille had begun her nightly routines in the bathroom, and she’d left the door teasingly ajar. She turned, as though aware of his attention, and wagged her toothbrush at him. ‘How many times do I have to ask you to put the cap back on my toothpaste when you’re finished,’ she told him. ‘It’s grown a beard now. You know how I hate toothpaste beards.’

‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘I know how you hate toothpaste beards.’

She scowled good-naturedly and flicked her toothbrush at him, spraying tiny white specks his way, before turning back to the basin. He watched her fondly. She was wearing her favourite of his old T-shirts, baggy enough on him that it hung like a miniskirt down to her thighs, modest enough most of the time, except for when she leaned forwards to spit out toothpaste, and showed a little more. She was brushing her teeth with her usual rhythmic vigour, swilling water and gargling it around her mouth before spitting out the white froth, then rinsing her toothbrush out and pointedly turning to him to screw the cap back on the toothpaste before replacing them both in the tooth-glass, diligent as a schoolgirl. Then she began to brush her hair, twenty strokes with her right hand, twenty
with her left. The same routine every night. These past few months, Knox had grown so used to it, he rarely even noticed any more. But every so often, like tonight, it would strike him fresh again, and he’d feel blessed.

‘Come to bed,’ he said.

‘In a moment.’

They’d been friends and colleagues before they’d become lovers, always an awkward transition—unless lubricated by copious quantities of alcohol, at least. It had been the Akhenaten affair that had convinced Knox to do something. He’d come so close to losing her that he’d realised how much she meant to him. He’d planned to ease himself in, a romantic dinner say, edging the conversation round, a couple of loaded jokes, a flirtatious look or two, gauging her reaction, keeping his lines of retreat open. But it hadn’t happened like that. The world’s media had clamoured for an interview with them both until Yusuf Abbas, Secretary General of the Supreme Council, had finally buckled. He’d arranged a single press conference in the hospital’s lecture hall on the morning of Gaille’s discharge. She and Knox had sat side-by-side behind a trestle-table, deflecting questions as best they could, just as Yusuf had instructed them, leaving the journalists little option but to go fishing.

‘So, then?’ asked a Frenchman with a straggled
red goatee and beaded hair. ‘Is there anything—how can I put this?—of a
romantic
nature between the two of you?’

Gaille had looked to Knox to see which of them would answer, then had leaned towards the bank of microphones. ‘No,’ she’d said. ‘We’re colleagues, that’s all. Business partners.’

The opportunity had been too good for Knox to let pass. ‘You see what I have to put up with,’ he’d said, lounging back in his chair. ‘You rescue a girl from Macedonian separatists, you save her from drowning, and what does that get you these days? Colleagues! Business bloody partners!’ He’d spread his arms wide, looked to the packed ranks of journalists for support. ‘I mean come on, guys. Back me up here. I mean, don’t you think I’ve earned at least a date?’

‘You’ve never even gone out on a date with him?’ asked the Frenchman incredulously.

‘He’s never asked me,’ Gaille had protested, throwing Knox a reproachful glance. ‘Not in that way.’

‘So,’ he’d smiled. ‘I’m asking you now.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really.’

Her throat and cheeks had turned marvellous colours. Her eyes had sparkled. ‘Then yes,’ she’d told him. ‘I’d like that very much.’

She came back into the bedroom now, running
her hands like combs through her hair. ‘What?’ she asked suspiciously, when she saw him gazing at her.

‘Nothing.’

‘Sure!’

‘It’s just that sometimes I forget how beautiful you are. And then you come in looking like that.’

She threw him a knowing look. ‘Not tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m knackered.’

‘I didn’t mean it that way,’ he laughed. ‘I only meant that I sometimes forget how beautiful you are.’

‘Oh.’ Those familiar warm colours rose again on her throat and cheeks. They tugged and twisted his heart every time, like a Chinese burn. ‘Then, thanks.’ She pulled back her side of the duvet, clambered inelegantly, almost childishly, into bed. He got under the duvet too, stretched his foot across, ran his bare sole down her calf. ‘God, you’ve got cold feet,’ she protested.

‘I could put my socks back on,’ he said. ‘I hear you women find that really sexy.’

‘Irresistible.’

He felt a reprise of gladness for her presence, but this time it was followed by its own shadow. Happiness was a most precarious thing when you’d lost as many loved ones as he had. What with Petitier’s death, and those goons in the lift, Athens felt like a perilous place right now. He didn’t mind taking a little risk himself, but it was different with
Gaille. He rose up onto an elbow. ‘You’re okay with all this, right?’ he asked. ‘With helping Augustin and Claire, I mean?’

‘Of course,’ she frowned. ‘How could you think otherwise?’

‘How far would you be prepared to go?’

Her eyes narrowed, sensing something, though not sure what. ‘Why do you ask?’

He put on his best guileless face. ‘It’s just, we’ve been putting all our thought into what’s going on here in Athens,’ he said. ‘That’s sensible enough, because Athens is where everything has happened so far. But maybe we’re missing a trick. We know for sure that Petitier’s found an important new site in Crete, thanks to those seals he sent Nico. There’s every chance he was
murdered
for what he’s found there. It could easily be the key to this investigation. And it isn’t here in Athens. It’s in Crete.’

Gaille folded her arms. ‘No,’ she said.

‘No, what?’

‘No, I’m not going.’

‘I didn’t say you should.’

‘You were about to.’

Knox didn’t bother to deny the charge. She knew him too well. ‘Someone needs to,’ he said. ‘Surely you can see that. It can’t be Claire. She’d never leave Augustin’s bedside, not at a time like this. And it can’t be me. I’ve got this bloody lecture to give, and the police made it damned clear that I’m
to stay in Athens. Anyway, all we’ve got to go on is some Linear A and Linear B seals, and you know far more about both those scripts than I do.’

‘But I don’t know anything about Crete,’ she protested. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start.’

‘The British School has a major operation at Knossos,’ said Knox. ‘Villa Ariadne, where Sir Arthur Evans lived while he was excavating. One of the archaeologists there is called Iain Parkes. He was at Cambridge with me.’

‘Then why not ask
him
to track down Petitier?’

‘Come on, Gaille. It’s not just a matter of finding out where Petitier’s been living for the last twenty years. Someone needs to go there, poke around, see what Petitier’s been up to. I can’t ask Iain to do all that. It’s too much. I haven’t seen him in ages. But I’m sure he’d help you get started.’

‘If you haven’t seen him in ages, how do you know he’s even there?’

‘Because after we decided to come here, I got in touch with him and asked if he’d be here; but he told me no, that he’d be minding the store.’