Girl at Sea (35 page)

The Truth

The Guardia Costiera boat sped along the shadowy coastline, a mere ten-minute ride away. They continued up until they reached a small, official-looking port with three other patrol boats docked there.

They were greeted on the dock by a man who was almost as tall as Ollie, wore sunglasses in the dark, and smiled as if he was being presented with his very own miniature pony instead of a few bedraggled Americans.

“Now you’ll come this way,” he said, his English thickly flavored by Italian, but pronounced with great precision and pride. “We will have an interview. Yes, all right?”

They were escorted into a low, long building covered in small plaques and signs. The inside was one stretch of hallway that they squelched down in their saturated shoes. The building wasn’t air-conditioned; it was nicely warm and sticky, and smelled comfortingly of heavily rubberized safety equipment.

305

There were two figures on a bench farther down the hall. One was leaning against the other. As they got closer, Clio could clearly see the blond hair.

“Elsa?” she said.

Elsa had clearly been crying. Her face was puffy all over, even around her mouth. She was also, Clio noticed, tucked under the arm of a good-looking Guardia Costiera officer who seemed very content with his night’s assignment. She stood up and stared at them both for a long moment and then embraced each of them, causing their Mylar blankets to crinkle loudly.

“I’m surprised you didn’t want me dead,” Clio said, trying to sound light.

“Don’t say that,” Elsa said. “
Never
say that. No matter what.

And especially . . .”

“It’s okay, Elsa,” Clio’s dad said, quickly stepping forward.

“This way,” the officer said. “Interview now. Just you two.”

Aidan and Clio were ushered into a small room with no windows, filled mostly by a square black table. The officer sat down with a very straight back, removing his hat and placing it on the table in front of him in a studied, exacting manner. His hair was very dark, and cut in short but frizzy curls that sprang up toward the ceiling when they were released. He did not take off the sunglasses.

“First,” he said, smiling broadly, “we will get for you coffee and pasta. Hot food.”

He picked up the phone and spoke in machine-gun-fast Italian, then hung up and regained his smile and slow, measured pace.

“We start at the beginning, all right, yes? And you will tell me how this has happened to you. You tell everything. Nothing is 306

boring to me. And now, I switch on this tape device, in case I miss something.”

So Clio and Aidan began to recount the story of the robbery, the fire, their escape, and their time in the raft. They were asked to repeat several details over again. Many questions were about the stone as well. They were only interrupted by the arrival of two trays of steaming hot pasta, which they wolfed down as they spoke.

“Can we have the stone back?” Clio asked as they reached the end of their story. “We risked our lives to get it off that boat. We
swam
with it.”

The officer spread his hands and made one of those “these things are hard to say” grimaces.

“This is a very unusual thing,” he said. “If it came from Pompeii, as you say, maybe one thing will happen. But if it belongs to the British Museum, even so long ago, maybe another thing will happen. Maybe it will go to them.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Aidan said. “At least they’ll look at it there. They may not take it as seriously as Julia would, but still.”

“We will see,” the officer said. “I am sure something will come of this. Now, I must go for a moment. Do you need more food?”

Aidan nodded vigorously. Clio sucked on her fork in thought and shook her head no. The officer left the room, shutting the door.

“What did you just say?” Clio asked as Aidan used his fork to scrape up any remnants of sauce from his tin takeout container.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“No. A minute ago. About how Julia would take it more seriously than the British Museum.”

307

“That’s what I said, then,” Aidan answered, reaching for Clio’s empty container with his fork.

“Why isn’t Julia in the hall?” she asked. “Why is Elsa crying so hard?”

“You’re asking me all this stuff I don’t know. Why?”

“When we got to town, Julia almost
insisted
that we all get off the boat and go to dinner. Which is crazy, right?”

“She was happy,” he said.

“It’s Julia,” Clio said. “You think she cares if we all get a fancy dinner if it means leaving the boat alone? It’s weird, right?”

“I guess now that you mention it, yeah. But she’s wanted this stone for a long time. Maybe she was feeling happy and generous for a change.”

“Right,” Clio said. Pieces were snapping together in her head, making a perfectly clear picture. “She’s wanted it for a
long time
.

So, there’s only two of us on the boat, and we take it out and anchor it, and some guys find us and take us. We couldn’t have been that easy to see from shore. Either someone followed us, or someone knew where we were going.”

Aidan stopped mid-scrape.

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying, what if she made a grab for it? Maybe when she went to shore she got some guys to come out to the boat and lift the stone. But instead, when they saw how pimped out the boat was, they decided to take it.”

“Why would she steal something she already had?” he asked.

“Because the story would be all about the Dive! family making a real-life diving find. It wouldn’t be about her and her work. So if she had it taken from the boat, she could claim she 308

found it anywhere. It would be about her again. This whole trip was unofficial. The only proof we have is the video footage, which she asked you to gather. Don’t you see?”

“You’ve had a long night,” Aidan said. “Maybe you should ask for more pasta.”

“Aidan, I’m serious,” she said. “Where is she now? Why isn’t she in the hallway right now, with her crying daughter and her distraught boyfriend?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe with Martin at the hospital?”

“Does that sound likely to you?” she asked. With every word, she felt her internal temperature rising, her brain working fast.

“Wouldn’t Elsa have stayed? She’s the only one who speaks Italian. I know you can’t believe it because she’s your boss. I’m sure of this, Aidan. I have to tell this guy. I at
least
have to tell him what I think.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.

The door opened again, and Clio got another glimpse of Elsa with the sailor. They were deep in a conversation in Italian, and he was wiping tears from her face. The officer ushered in Clio’s father, who hurried in and sat down next to her, putting his arm protectively around her. He clasped Aidan on the shoulder.

“Where’s Julia?” Clio asked innocently. “Why isn’t she here?

Is she with Martin?”

“No,” her father said. “She’s gone.”

Clio shot Aidan a wide-eyed “told you” look. In reply, Aidan’s eyebrows rose and locked in position, and he fixed her with a silencing stare as she started to open her mouth.

“I deliver news,” the officer said, going back to his seat. “And 309

I must ask some more questions to all of you. Do you know a Jeffrey Fox?”

“No,” her father said. “Never heard of him.”

“Not the owner of
Foxy Lady
?” Clio said.

Her father’s face lit up in recognition. He started pointing at Clio in agreement, pointing his finger toward her.

“Sure,” he said. “Fox. I bought the boat from an Angela Fox.

Clio’s right. It was called the
Foxy Lady
.”

“Things become clearer,” the officer said, opening a file. “We have written here that Jeffrey Fox is a banker from London who works in Rome. Our records show that he had a boat called the
Foxy Lady
docked here in Civitavecchia.”

“What about him?” her father asked. “I bought the boat. It’s all legal.”

“Yes,” the officer said. “This I know. We get the name Jeffrey Fox from three men we find just now.”

“So, you found the boat?” Clio asked quickly.

“No,” he said, still smiling. “It is sank. Do I say this correctly?

It hit a rock after a fire broke out on board. They were not watching where they were going. We pull these men from the water. It is a busy night for us. Jeffrey Fox wanted his boat back.

He told people at the dock to watch to see if it ever returned, and when it did, they called him. He hired these three men to take the boat back.”

Clio felt herself slumping. Just a second ago, Julia’s guilt had been the clearest thing in the world. That reality had been swept away. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Aidan.

“Already, police in Rome are finding Jeffrey Fox,” the officer went on. “And surely, a boat like this, it is insured. All ends happily.”

310

Clio’s father sank a little in his chair.

“Well,” he said. “I didn’t expect to have it that long, and I could only get a policy for a year. And it was really expensive.”

“This boat is not insured?” the officer asked, looking aghast.

“I see. I must go and make arrangements for these men. I will leave you here for a few moments.”

“Where
is
Julia?” Clio asked her dad.

“She called her contacts in Rome,” he said. “There are people there who understand the importance of the stone. They asked her to come there at once and help them gather up everything necessary for the transport. She got on a train. It’s a quick ride.

She’ll be so crushed. . . .”

He trailed off, shaking his head.

“I can’t really care,” he said. “About the boat. About the stone.

I have you two. But it’s hard to know that we had it. We actually
had it
.”

“Dad—” Clio said.

“It would have changed so much,” he went on. “We could have opened a window on a whole part of the ancient world that we know nothing about.”

“Dad—”

“It’s okay, Clio,” he said. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter.”

“Ben,” Aidan said. “We—”

“You two!” her dad said loudly. “Let’s just forget about it and think about getting you guys—”

“We got it!” Clio finally yelled.

“Got what?” he asked.

“It. The stone. We got it off the boat.”

It took him a minute to catch up with what she’d said.

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“It’s not gone?” he managed to ask. “How?”

“It was an interesting swim,” Aidan said.

“You two . . . got away.
And
you took the stone? You had to have put yourself at risk to do that. I don’t know whether I should hug you or yell at you.”

“It couldn’t really get any more risky,” Clio said, accepting another massive hug. She smiled as Aidan was similarly crushed.

312

Kos, Greece, March 1905

What probably first drew Marguerite’s attention was the fact that a naked man was standing on the very lip of a small boat.

He held a small net in one hand.

“There’s a naked man,” she mentioned to Jonathan. “With a net.”

For the last eight years, Jonathan and Marguerite had worked side by side in Pompeii. There was always much to be done. It was a massive city—a site on a scale unlike anything in the world. And every day they found more.

She had become physically stronger over the last few years, used to bright sun and long days. She wiped two thousand years’

worth of ash and dirt from mosaics and frescoes. She found jewelry, money, and, occasionally, human remains. She learned the technique of putting plaster into gaps in the ash, preserving the form of the bodies entombed within.

It was good, hard work. And nothing made her happier than 313

working with Jonathan. Still, she couldn’t help but feel that she was letting her father down. In eight years of labor, she hadn’t uncovered anything as important as the stone that bore her name. Something gnawed inside her. There was something more she needed to do.

She didn’t know what it was until she saw the naked man on the side of his boat.

The man took a flat, bell-shaped stone and dove headfirst off the side. There was a rope connected to the stone. She watched it slither into the water as he sank.