The Orpheus Descent (41 page)

The bus went dark as it plunged into a tunnel. Jonah tried to kill the image in his head: the rusting cabin, the damp-stained mattress and the perfect corpse laid out, hair splayed around the face. In his imagination, it was Lily’s face.

‘Didn’t the police—?’

‘The ship belonged to Maroussis, so they went straight to him. The press never heard. There was no investigation.’

‘So how do you know?’

‘Persistence.’

The bus rumbled on. Jonah waited for the tunnel to end.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I want to find Lily and bring her back. What are you in this for?’

A mask of light struck her face as the bus came out of the tunnel.

‘I want to hurt them.’

They caught the overnight ferry from Patras across the Ionian sea, and landed in Bari at dawn. From there, they took a train. Jonah dozed, slipping between dreams and memories. He had no idea how Ren passed the time. When he woke up, they were there.

In the ten days Jonah had been away, the season had started to turn. Persephone had begun the long retreat back to her subterranean husband: fields had been cut to stubble, smoke flavoured the air, and daylight already felt precious. There was no sign of a taxi at the station, so they walked. By the time they reached the lab, the evening had come on enough for them to see the lights inside.

They stepped through the open gate. Two cars sat parked in the lot: Richard’s pickup, and the white Ford van with S
OUTH
P
ECKHAM
C
HURCH OF THE
R
EDEEMER
written down the side. Jonah had never been so happy to see it. He patted its flank as he went past, leaving a smudge in its dirt coat.

He tried the door and found it unlocked. He climbed the dark stairwell, trying to avoid the echo. At the top, light and the sound of piano music spilled through the lab doorway. It sounded like Bach.

Do you like Bach?

He stood in the shadow beside the door, straining to hear beyond the music. The antique heating system popped and clattered as it flexed pipes that had lain cold all summer. A loose shutter squeaked on its hinge. Anything else was hard to distinguish from the murmur of his imagination.

On the other side of the doorway, Ren nodded her head.
Go on.
Belatedly, Jonah wondered if he should have brought some sort of weapon.

The music stopped. A woman’s voice came on the radio, murmuring something in Italian. Jonah went in.

The season had finished. The samples and instruments that had cluttered it two weeks ago now sat packaged in crates and boxes, ready to go into hibernation. The walls and pinboards had shed their paperwork. The skull still grinned on the table beside the sink, waiting to be put away; and a laptop trailed wires across a trestle table. Otherwise, the job was almost finished.

Richard stood at the table, squinting at the laptop. He didn’t look up straight away – perhaps he was expecting someone, or lost in his work. When he did, he grabbed the table so hard he almost knocked it over.

‘What—?’

Jonah didn’t give him a chance. He crossed the room with two strides, pulled the table aside and swung a fist that connected hard with Richard’s face. He collapsed; Jonah picked him up and hit him again, then dropped him on the floor.

‘Where is she?’

‘I don’t—’

‘I’ve spoken to Adam. I’ve spoken to Maroussis. I know they took her.’

Richard rubbed his mouth. Blood came away on the sleeve of his shirt. ‘You saw Adam?’ He glanced at the door. Ren stood there, arms folded, cutting off his escape.

‘In Athens.’

Richard mumbled something pained and indecipherable. Jonah lifted him up by the collar of his shirt and put his face close. ‘What?’

‘Why didn’t he stop you?’

‘Stop me?’

‘Adam.’

‘He tried. He sent me into a war zone. Now I’m here.’

Richard pulled himself up and slumped on a stool beside the table.

‘Can I have some water?’

Ren ran the tap and filled an empty coffee cup. Richard watched her warily, like a dog he didn’t trust.

‘Who’s she?’

‘A friend.’

Richard couldn’t keep back the smirk from his bloodied lips. ‘That didn’t take long.’

Jonah thought about hitting him again, but decided not to waste the effort. ‘Tell me everything. From the beginning.’

‘From the
beginning
?’ The word seemed to puzzle him.

‘Why did you bring Lily here in the first place?’

‘It was Adam. He came to me last November and told me his foundation was funding this dig. He said I should apply. Funding’s rare as unicorns these days, so I jumped. Then I talked Lily into it.’

‘Did you tell her what she was getting into?’

‘
Getting into?
I didn’t know myself. I mean, we weren’t
getting into
anything. If we hadn’t found that tablet, nothing would have happened. Just another season.’

‘Did she know about Adam?’

‘He told me not to tell her. He said it would be awkward if she knew he was funding her.’

‘Go on.’

‘Then we dug up the tablet. Word came down that they wanted it over in Athens. Obviously, that’s completely illegal. Easy enough to do, with a piece that size – you could pop it in the post, for heaven’s sake – but you’d be putting yourself out of bounds. No report, no publication. The conservator went ballistic and threatened to spill the beans; Lily wanted to quit.’

‘And you?’

‘I didn’t like it either.’

‘But you let her take the heat while you hid behind her.’

‘I thought it would all fizzle out. Lily flew to Athens to see Adam. They came back together with Maroussis
fils
. Next thing, the conservator was off the dig. Then the tablet vanished.’

‘When was that?’

‘The night before you came. We didn’t notice until the next morning.’ A wounded note crept into his voice. ‘Everything I told you in London is true. The tablet was in the safe, and only three people knew the combination. Me, Sandi and Lily. She must have stolen it. Christ, I probably helped her do it. I came to the lab that night to get some things and found her here by herself. I gave her a lift back to the hotel, for heaven’s sake.’

‘And the next morning?’

‘It was one of those days. One of the volunteers fell ill. The osteologist turned up complaining that some of the finds had been mislabelled, and we spent half the morning sorting it out. Then the pump broke and flooded the trench. We started making jokes about King Tut’s curse.’

‘What about Lily?’

‘She was on edge – but we all were. She’d been trying to get to the lab all morning, and she wanted to be ready for when you arrived. I assumed that was why she reacted so badly when Ari turned up.’

‘He came to the trench?’

‘To the lab. Lily was still at the trench. When she heard, she looked as if she could spit blood. She set off straight away, didn’t wait for him to come down to the dig. Obviously she never made it.’

Another wave of anger rolled through him. Jonah rode it out and counted to ten. ‘When did you find out? Were you in on it from the beginning?’

‘Of course not.’ The indignation of a guilty man clinging to fragments of pride. ‘If I’d had any inkling, I’d have warned her.’

‘And Adam?’

‘I don’t know. I still don’t know what happened, exactly. Ari discovered the tablet was missing and hit the roof. Have you met him?’ Jonah shook his head; Richard’s eyes dropped. ‘He’s pretty wild. He must have guessed Lily stole it. He headed over for the dig just as she was coming here. When he saw her on the road, he grabbed her.’

‘
Grabbed her
,’ Jonah repeated. The phrase stuck in his mouth, alien and ugly. ‘Just like that?’

‘Ari’s used to getting what he wants. I suppose he can afford to.’

All the pleasures of his dissolute life only make him mad for more.

‘So when I got there – did you know?’

Richard looked genuinely miserable. ‘I thought she’d gone to the lab. Honestly. No one told me anything until after you’d come.’

‘And the text messages? Her mother’s fall?’

A long, agonised silence. Richard stared at the table and fiddled with his hands. ‘I sent them.’

More silence – more than Richard could bear. ‘They gave me her phone and told me to do it. They thought I could make it convincing.’ His cheeks flushed as if he’d been hit again. ‘I promise you, I had no idea what it was about. Adam told me to get you away.’ He glanced up, terrified of Jonah’s reaction. ‘For God’s sake, I didn’t want to.’

Richard Andrews has lived his entire life by the rules that other people set for him.

He knew he should be angry. Come to that, he
was
angry – but not with the all-consuming fury Richard deserved. Perhaps it would come later; perhaps the sheer enormity of Richard’s betrayal had jammed his emotions.

Perhaps he didn’t have the luxury of brooding on the past. ‘What did they do with Lily?’

‘Ari put her on his boat.’ Richard fingered his collar, smearing more blood. It looked as though he’d cut his throat. ‘I’m sure they’ll let her go as soon as this is over. They’re not bad people. They just want the tablet.’

From across the sea, Jonah caught Socratis Maroussis’ eyes watching him from his island. As deep as the world, and as cruel.

‘You really think they’ll let her go? After all they’ve done to her?’

‘I suppose they can pay her enough to keep quiet. You too.’

‘What about the tablet?’ Ren said from the door. It was the first time she’d spoken. Richard looked as surprised as if the skull on the counter had suddenly come to life.

Richard writhed under her stare. ‘I don’t know. I don’t.’

‘You were the only other person who had the combination.’

‘Do you think Adam and Ari don’t know that? Do you think they didn’t work me over pretty hard.’

‘He’s right,’ said Jonah. ‘He’d never have stood up to them. You wouldn’t even have dared take it in the first place.’

He sniffed. ‘Some would say that’s honesty.’

‘So where is it?’

Jonah turned, trying to imagine Lily in the room. Late, dark – just like now – rushing to get the tablet out, scribbling down the words as urgently as the original scribe to preserve the memory.
I found her here by herself
. Richard’s feet on the stairs, the squeak of the door as he came in. No time to put it back in the safe.

‘She took the tablet, but she wasn’t going to keep it,’ he guessed. ‘She wanted to copy the text, so that she’d have it if Maroussis made it disappear. You surprised her, so she didn’t get a chance to put it back in the safe. That’s why she was so desperate to get to the lab next morning. To put it back before anyone found out.

‘But they searched her when they picked her up. She didn’t have the tablet. It wasn’t in her room, either. Adam said so.’

They searched her.
Grim images came into his head, rough hands pawing at Lily, fumbling and groping and pinching. Were they violent? Were they
thorough
?

Ari’s used to getting what he wants.

‘Did Adam say if they’ve found the tablet since?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m sure they’d have let Lily go if they had. That’s all they want her to tell them.’

You really think they’ll let her go?
If Lily knew where the tablet was, he prayed to God she hadn’t told them. If she had …

He forced himself to concentrate.
He put himself back in Lily’s shoes that night, copying out the tablet. He remembered the piece of paper, the awkward Greek letters and – in the top left-hand corner – a reference.

‘Was R
27
the number of the tablet?’

Richard shook his head. ‘The trench. Every artefact is bagged up with a piece of paper that records the location we found it.’

Ren watched Jonah carefully, head tilted against the doorframe. ‘What are you thinking?’

‘The tablet isn’t in the lab. It wasn’t in the hotel room. She didn’t have it with her.’

‘Go on.’

‘The only other place she went that day was the dig.’

‘Why would she have left it there?’

‘She meant to put it back in the lab, but Ari arrived before she could get there. So she hid it.’

‘Where?’

‘R
27
. The trench where she originally found it.’ He turned to Richard. ‘Have you got torches?’

Richard didn’t move. A strange, unhappy look filled his face.

‘What?’

‘It’s not that easy. The season’s over, we’ve already started backfilling. And we turned the pumps off yesterday.’

The pickup’s high beams shone over the hole, cutting a slice out of the night. Mist rose off the freshly turned earth. In the truck’s cab, parked on the edge, Jonah could see how far the work of filling in the trench had advanced. It looked less than a third of the size he remembered. Heaped earth-mounds ringed the remaining hole like a crater; a digger’s scoop dangled into the beam like the claw of some mud-dwelling monster.

Richard put the truck in low gear and nudged it forward until it was pointing down the slope, aiming the lights at the bottom of the hole. Jonah leaned forward in his seat.

The city had drowned again. A black lake covered the bottom of the pit, lapping its sides. The only remains were a few stone walls, barely breaking the surface. Jonah tried to remember how high they’d been before. A foot? Two feet?

Leaving the engine running, they grabbed two spades from the back of the truck and made their way down the slope. Damp mud balled under their shoes. They halted at the edge of the pool.

‘Where was R
27
?’

Richard looked around uncertainly. Their shadows rippled on the black water. ‘We took up all the markers.’

‘Don’t be cute,’ Ren said. ‘You know exactly where it is.’

‘How?’ said Jonah.

‘Tell him.’

‘When we survey the trench, we map every position with GPS,’ Richard admitted.

‘Where’s that written down?’

‘In the Field Journal,’ said Ren. She took the battered notebook out of her bag.

‘I thought we might need this. I grabbed it from the lab.’