The Lost Labyrinth (27 page)

‘Too much?’

He raised his glass in a wry toast. ‘I began craving it every night. LSD isn’t addictive; nor is hemp. But others of our ingredients were. My left hand began to tremble. I could feel my concentration wavering. I lost interest in things that had once compelled me. I was aware of all this, but I didn’t know what to do about it.’ He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. ‘That was when I met Maria. It’s one of the reasons I fell for her so hard, I suspect. Self-preservation. She was my lifeboat.’ His expression softened, his gaze lengthened. ‘Have
you someone like that in your life? Someone who makes you want to do absurd things for them?’

‘Yes,’ said Knox.

‘Keep good hold of them.’

‘I intend to.’ He put down his glass. ‘So you met your wife-to-be and stopped taking drugs. What about Petitier? Presumably if your drug use was known about, his was too.’

Franklin nodded. ‘The French School couldn’t ignore it any longer, not after the scene he made at the Evans lecture, because he was roaring drunk at the time. And so he left. The irony is that his ideas have since gained traction. I think most people now accept that there was something in the
kykeon
. For one thing, celebrants described their experiences in such
physical
terms. They talked about sweating, about getting the cramps. They gave the impression that it was an
ordeal
as much as it was an ecstasy. Take my word for it: that’s exactly like acid. It feels as though your soul is being torn from your body. The heart of the word intoxication is “toxic”, after all; drugs are poisons, only in smaller doses.’

‘It must have been a hell of a shock for you when Petitier reappeared,’ said Knox. ‘After all that time trying to bury your misspent youth, I mean.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Franklin. But there was something in his tone that made Knox look curiously at him.
‘Oh, it was a shock, all right,’ insisted Franklin. ‘It’s just, I’ve been thinking a great deal about it recently, and perhaps it shouldn’t have been.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘It’s one of the hazards of being an archaeologist here in Greece that farmers and other landowners keep pestering you with the magnificent treasures they’re certain are buried on their properties, which they’ll happily sell you for a very reasonable sum.’

‘We have them in Egypt too,’ smiled Knox. ‘Amazing how rarely they find anything exciting on good agricultural land.’

‘Quite. It was part of Petitier’s job to answer such letters. He used to bring some of them back to the house, to give us all a laugh. But he’d visit Crete quite often too, and check some of the more promising leads out. And then he came into some money, I remember. His grandmother died; he celebrated with champagne.’

‘What a charmer,’ said Knox. ‘So you think one of these letters may have alerted him to a real Minoan site; and that he bought it with his inheritance?’

‘It’s possible, don’t you think? After all, he’d pretty much burned his academic bridges here; no one else was likely to employ him. And it would have been just like him to sulk off into the wilderness, vowing never to return; or not until he could
prove himself right, at least, and all his critics wrong.’

Edouard paced back and forth downstairs, Nadya’s screams jolting through him like electric shocks. He was a coward. He knew that for sure now. He’d always suspected it, of course, despite fond daydreams of himself as one of those quiet, understated men whose heroism only appeared at the hour of greatest need. But that hour was now, and his heroism was nowhere to be seen.

She shrieked again. His heart went out to her, as it would to any fellow human in such pain. How long could it go on? Her scream dissolved into sobs and pleas. He didn’t know which was worse to listen to. But one thing was for sure: it was better to be down here listening, then up there, having it done to him.

Curiously, he’d shown a moment of boldness earlier; though of course that had been before the torture had started. After the delivery boy had brought the mobile phone, Mikhail had come inside and put it down on the arm of the settee, then forgotten about it. Edouard, frantic to do something for his family, had pocketed it and taken it to the loo, had sent his brother a text message
asking for a contact number for his friend Viktor. He’d quickly grown fearful that Mikhail would notice the mobile was missing, however, so he’d hidden it down the side of the settee, where no one was likely to find it unless they looked, but where it could easily have fallen by accident.

The bedroom door opened. Zaal came out, leaned over the balcony. ‘Oi!’ he called out. ‘Mister Nergadze wants a bottle of vodka and some glasses.’

Edouard looked at him sickly. ‘You want me to go up there?’

‘Unless you’ve got a teleporter.’ The door closed again. Edouard went to the kitchen, pulled a new bottle from the freezer, found glasses in the cabinet. Another shriek pierced the air. He closed his eyes and waited for silence.
What had he become involved in?
There could be no excuse for this, no penance. It was an ineradicable stain upon his soul.

‘About time,’ grunted Zaal, when he took in the vodka. ‘Thirsty work, this.’

‘Put it on the dressing table,’ said Mikhail.

He glanced at Nadya, he couldn’t help himself. Her face was white, her cheeks glazed with tears, her jaw and chest with vomit. He caught the smell and saw her hand in the same moment, and the bile rose in his own throat, he dropped the glasses and the vodka and turned and sprinted back out onto the landing then to the nearest loo, but not
quickly enough, the pale acidic mush spattering the floor and the seat and porcelain sides, his stomach cramping a second and then a third time. He felt it dribbling down his cheeks and chin, onto his clothes. He wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist.

There was laughter behind him. He turned to see Mikhail and Zaal in the doorway. ‘Christ, that stinks,’ said Mikhail.

He felt dizzy and weak, but he pushed himself up all the same. ‘I’m not built for this kind of thing.’

‘Clean this up. And yourself too.’ He shook his head. ‘You should have more self-respect.’

The vomiting had left Edouard weary, yet it had cleared his head and taken the edge off his fear too. He realised with an almost abstract curiosity that, for this moment at least, he felt unburdened by anxiety.
Was that all courage was?
he wondered.
The absence of fear?
He stood there a moment, half-expecting the sensation to pass, but it didn’t. Almost as an experiment, he went downstairs to the kitchen for a bucket and mop, surreptitiously retrieved the mobile phone too. Back upstairs, he closed and locked the bathroom door, turned on both basin taps. A slight chill in his forehead, a tightness in his chest, a shiver rippling gently through him. His window was growing short. It was now or never.

He turned on the mobile, clasped it against his
chest to muffle its noises. His brother had replied with a contact number. The mobile was pay-as-you-go; it barely had enough credit for local calls, let alone international ones. He knew his debit card details by heart, however. He topped up the account, punched in Viktor’s number, ever more aware of the risk he was taking. The Nergadzes would find out about this eventually; and it was a matter of pride with them that no one crossed them and got away with it.

‘This is Viktor,’ said a man. ‘Who’s this?’

‘Edouard Zdanevich,’ whispered Edouard, fearful of being overheard, despite the running taps. ‘We met once at my brother Tamaz’s house.’

‘Yes,’ said Viktor. He sounded wide awake, even though it was well into the early hours in Georgia. ‘He told me you might call. What can I do for you?’

Edouard hesitated, uncertain how to start. ‘It’s my wife and children,’ he said. ‘They’re in danger.’

‘You’re calling me about your wife and children?’

‘The Nergadzes have them,’ murmured Edouard. ‘They’re using them as hostages.’

‘Hostages? For what?’

Edouard could hear strange noises at the other end of the line, clicks and humming and low murmurs, hints of furious behind-the-scenes activity, of people listening in, of others being
woken and briefed. He took a deep breath. ‘I spoke to my wife this morning,’ he began. ‘She said they’d all been out horse-riding earlier with Ilya. Then she said that Kiko had been out riding before, with a man named Nicoloz Badridze.’

‘I’m not with you.’

‘Badridze was a child molester. My wife was trying to tell me that Ilya Nergadze is…doing things with my son.’

‘They were out horse-riding, you say? That hardly sounds like molestation.’

‘For god’s sake!’ he pleaded. ‘You have to do something.’

‘You think we can issue a warrant against a man like Nergadze on the basis of this? Are you mad?’

‘You have to.’

‘No we don’t. We really don’t.’

‘But my son…’

‘Then give me something concrete,’ said Viktor. ‘I know you can. You’re on the inside; that’s why I contacted you in the first place. With something concrete I can get a warrant. We can get your family out of there, and who knows what a search might turn up. But without anything concrete—’ Nadya shrieked again, her cries loud enough for Viktor to hear, even over the running taps. ‘What the hell was that?’ he asked.

Edouard hesitated. Tell him what was going on
here, maybe he’d notify the Greeks and they’d send in the police. The Nergadzes would know instantly who’d blown the whistle, and his wife and children would pay dearly. ‘They’re watching movies downstairs,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Viktor.

‘You need cause for a warrant,’ said Edouard. ‘Fine. Then how about this. Sandro and Ilya Nergadze are right now destroying priceless artefacts that belong to the Georgian nation.’ He described his earlier conversations with Sandro, the plan to melt down the Turkmeni cache to forge a golden fleece.

‘And these pieces don’t belong to the Nergadzes? You’re sure of that?’

‘They gave them to the nation in front of god-knows how many TV and press cameras. I’ve got the paperwork at the Museum, if you want to check.’

A click on the phone and a new voice came on. A woman. ‘You’ll testify to that?’ she asked, a little groggy with sleep. ‘Under oath?’

‘Who is this?’

‘Never mind that,’ said Viktor. ‘Just answer the question.’

‘Yes,’ said Edouard. ‘I’ll testify under oath.’

‘Good,’ said the woman. ‘Then you can have your warrant.’

‘Thank you,’ said Viktor. ‘Now listen to me,
Edouard. You’re not to mention this to a soul, not even to your wife. You’re not to do anything at all that might draw attention to yourself, or arouse suspicion. Not until we’ve acted. Not until you have my explicit clearance. Understood?’

‘You’re going in?’ asked Edouard.

‘Maybe.’

‘When? When will you go in?’

‘When we’re ready.’

‘What about my son? What about my—’ But he was talking to a dead phone. He turned it off, put it away in his pocket. Just in time. He heard footsteps outside, then pounding on the door. He went to it, opened it a crack.

‘Aren’t you finished yet?’ asked Zaal.

‘Nearly done,’ said Edouard.

‘Mikhail says to get some sleep. We’ve an early start tomorrow.’

‘Why? What’s happened?’

‘We broke her,’ said Zaal proudly. ‘You should have seen her. What a fucking mess. And it’s all true. About the fleece, I mean. She just confirmed it. Knox has it, apparently. Even better, he’s having breakfast with her in a few hours. Or so he thinks.’ He gave a happy laugh. ‘Poor sod! That’s one appointment he’s going to regret having made.’

Morning. Gaille woke to find Iain shaking her gently by her shoulder. ‘Time to get up,’ he murmured.

She sat up clutching the mouth of the sleeping bag, peered past him out the flap of the tent. The sun wasn’t yet risen, but the surrounding hills had turned from black outlines to muted greens and greys. ‘Already?’ she asked.

‘We need to get into the house.’

She waited until he’d gone back out, then climbed from the sleeping bag. It was cold enough that she hurried to pull on her trousers, blouse, socks and shoes. Her ankle was sore beneath the strapping, but it wasn’t as bad as it might have been.

Iain was sitting with his feet dangling over the roof’s edge, a coil of rope over his shoulder, a crowbar in his hand. He put a finger to his lips,
then beckoned her over and pointed out the German shepherd asleep below. ‘Look at its leash,’ he whispered.

She rested her weight on her hands, leaned over the edge. The morning light was so milky that she had to squint. The dog’s collar was attached by a black cord several metres long to a steel spike hammered into the ground near the front door, allowing it the freedom of movement to guard it as well as the sides of the house. She retreated a little way. ‘So?’ she murmured.

He held up the crowbar and the rope. ‘I found these in an outhouse. We can use them to neutralise it.’

‘It’s a guard dog!’ protested Gaille. ‘It’s only doing its job.’

‘I’m not planning to brain it,’ said Iain. ‘Not unless I have to. The crowbar’s for the front door. But first we have to get that damned hound out of the way.’

‘How?’ she asked.

Iain allowed himself a smile. ‘That’s where you come in,’ he said.

Viktor stood in the forest fringes and stared through field-glasses down at Ilya Nergadze’s castle. His mind was a little fried; he wasn’t as
young as he’d once been and all-nighters took their toll.

When he’d got his warrant just five hours earlier, he’d never imagined everything could be put together this quickly. But he’d underestimated the power of having a direct line to the presidential palace. He’d forgotten what special forces could do when they put their mind to it.

The castle looked impossibly romantic in the morning light, like something from a movie. Its drawbridge was up, and there was no sign of movement, except for the guards walking their rounds upon the battlements. Patches of mist lay in the little valleys in the meadows. There were wild swans on the lake and, somewhere, a hoopoe was calling. A more peaceful scene was hard to imagine.