A Darker God

by Barbara Cleverly

  “If I am to believe Gunay—and I do—the portrait busts and the collection of gold and silver coins you have just examined came to light in one of the mounds on his property. Having no interest in archaeology and not much knowledge of the ancient history of the region, he kept most of the objects and sold off some others but left the remaining tomb untouched—‘Just in case …’ Safer than a bank, he must have assumed. Not an unusual sentiment from a countryman. I’ve known peasants the world over who keep their precious goods under the mattress or buried in a jar in the back garden!

  “You will have assigned a date to the coinage …”

  Letty gave a guilty gasp. “Have we?”

  Gunning ran his fingers through the coins again, paying attention to the markings. They waited for his decision.

  “Up to and including and quite possibly beyond Alexander,” he pronounced. “But how would we know? The professor’s playing with us again! The coins minted after the death of Alexander the Great, who was number three in the lineup of Alexanders, went on showing his face on the front, usually in a lion’s-head helmet, through the reigns of the next two or three kings, including his own brother and his son, the number four Alexander, who reigned very briefly. It would take an expert to judge. Here, Montacute … what do you make of this one?”

  Montacute peered and shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong bloke. Takes me all my time to tell a half crown from a two-bob bit. It’s silver with the goddess Athena on the back like a lot of the others, but it seems a bit different from the rest … The face on the front is Alexander, I’d say, but he looks rather sterner, older than usual—and what’s all that outcrop behind his head?”

  “I think it’s meant to be a ram’s horn, signifying the god Ammon. He’s done up as Alexander the Deified. He’s turned into a god—one presumes after his death.”

  “Let’s assume we’ve failed that little test and go on to the next thing, shall we? Letty?”

  “… which leads me to infer that the burial represented here, by these goods, postdates the death of Alexander, and yet is a royal funeral. His mother died some years after her son. Subject to further investigation on the spot, I’m suggesting that we have here some of the contents of the tomb of Olympias. One of the raided mounds?

  “But the intact tomb? I say again: It was the strong custom of the Kings of Macedon to be buried near their home, alongside their fathers and grandfathers. No one has ever located the last resting place of Alexander. He died in the East, in Babylon, and there are convincing accounts of the mummification of his body by experts in the practice. It is suspected—and for excellent reasons—that he was laid to rest, possibly along with his great golden catafalque, somewhere in Egypt. In Alexandria? At the oasis of Siwah? The world’s most energetic and knowledgeable archaeological sleuths have dug about in every likely Egyptian location. Even Schliemann with his acute nose for buried gold snooped about and came up with nothing! Merriman toiled for years! Exploring following up clues and whispers of clues, and I found: nothing. Significant? Letty, it’s my opinion that if there had been something to find in the burning sands, it would have been found.

  “I’m proposing that the remains of Alexander lie in the deep soil of his homeland, alongside his grandfather, his father, and his mother. The richest man the world has ever known was returned there by a supreme piece of sleight of hand on the part of his general Perdikkas and buried with all honours by his own mother. And Olympias would not have stinted on the splendour of the funeral rites for her beloved and only son! Perhaps she had the taste to refrain from the ceremonial cremation and bury her son intact as she last saw him: his youthful body preserved forever, covered in gold and draped in purple cloths.

  “I’m proposing that the golden youth you so despise is, at the end, in your hands, Letty!

  “Deal with him appropriately, won’t you? Many, many men have admired him down the centuries, you know! And still do! Ask Gunning!

  “I resist my impulse to plead for him one last time—to stress the enormous influence he was on the ancient and, indeed, our modern world, the way in which he spread Hellenic culture throughout the East, replaced Persian and Egyptian magic with Greek science and mathematics, introduced Greek ideas of medicine, law, meritocracy, and justice. I, instead, appeal to your female and romantic instincts. He loved literature, he loved his horse and his dog. He was courteous to women and generous to his friends, and he was fond of his mother.”

  “Pompous, patronising old juggins!” Letty exclaimed, thrusting the pages at Gunning in disgust. “Oh, Andrew! If you’re still lurking about somewhere in the shadows—pin your ears back and hear this! That metallic tinkling you hear is the remaining scales falling from my eyes! Romantic female indeed! I expect clever, ambitious Olympias had the same problems with the men who surrounded her, running her life. How dare you make such assumptions about me and my prejudices? I begin to think you scarcely know me … knew me. Do you seriously think my opinion will be softened because a man loved his horse and was fond of his mother? Do you think I’m capable of such triviality of thought? And incapable of understanding that a man can be a baffling mixture of goodness and evil? Good Lord! I don’t have to assign the man a pass mark in humanity as judged by the morality of a later era before I’ll be prepared to dig up his bones!”

  Montacute frowned, irritated, she thought, by her tirade. “Shall we let Gunning read on for a while?” he asked politely.

  Gunning was ready to pick up the hint.

  “He was a good son. He constantly sent home the pick of the plunder from the cities of the East he conquered to his mother in Macedonia. Olympias wrote to him regularly and he always paid attention to her advice and suggestions. And he had a sense of humour you would have appreciated. One day, needled beyond reason by his mother’s demands, he waved her latest letter at his friend Hephaestion and grinned. ‘She asks a lot in return for the nine months’ board and lodging she gave me,’ he joked.

  “This, Letty, is the elusive man I have tracked for years, eager to find some last trace of him. With luck, I shall be here beaming and smiling when you return from Crete and, when the moment seems right, I shall propose that we go north and make the discovery together. If things do not go so well for me, it will be up to you to implement Plan B.

  “You must go under the aegis of the British School and liaise with the Embassy. You will find many people eager to help. Use all authority you can come by and insist on an armed guard. Take all possible care.

  “I think I saw him again the other day. And again yesterday. Soulios Gunay. I had thought him dead. If this is indeed Gunay, and not my shocked imaginings, why is he in Athens? He should not be here. Why does he not greet me but stare through me, turn, and hurry away? I’m sick with apprehension—”

  “Heavens! Go on, William,” said Letty.

  “I can’t. There is no more. It ends abruptly. Not even a signature. The folds are not even—it looks as though he pushed it hurriedly into the envelope.”

  “The banker’s men were probably rattling at the doorknob,” suggested Montacute. “You’ve seen them—they run on clockwork and wait for no man!” He glanced anxiously at his watch. “Had enough excitement for one day? Prepare yourselves for one more! Miss Letty, pass me that paper knife from the professor’s desk, would you?”

  Knife in hand, he turned his attention to the black chest. “Before this gets carted off … you’re forgetting what our lawyer friend told us. The professor was insistent that the new owner should pay some attention to it as well as the contents. And I think I know why.”

  “Hey! Stop that!” Letty called. “You’re not going to attack it with a paper knife! I won’t let you!”

  “Only way. I’ll be discreet. The lid, I couldn’t help noticing as I cracked my muscles to lift it, is extraordinarily heavy. The surface is painted to look like ebony, but really it wouldn’t deceive an infant. That’s a coat of relatively modern paint, I’d say,hardly more than camouflage. And if what I’m thinking
is right, then it should scrape off very easily. Because I’m also thinking that paint never adheres very successfully to …”

  He stretched himself out on the floor and scraped away at a section of the underside of the back of the chest, a spot between the two rear legs, his head at a neck-breaking angle. “… to metal,” he grunted, after a moment’s suspense.

  He lifted his head. “To be precise: to gold. It’s gold, man! Solid bloody gold!”

  Chapter 32

  The Cretan gendarme who manned the front desk in the police lockup checked for a second time the visitor’s credentials. In no hurry, he studied the immaculate figure standing aloof, uncommunicative, glancing in a marked manner at his expensive Swiss wristwatch and tapping his shiny black shoe.

  “And does the prisoner wish to see you?” the Cretan asked with deliberate lack of deference. He had decided the visitor represented everything he despised. “She has not requested it.”

  “Immaterial,” said the visitor. “Get on with it, man!” He passed an envelope over the desk.

  The explanatory note, written in Greek, on headed paper, and signed with a flourish, was studied with exaggerated interest. Careful and professional to the bone, the policeman required the visitor to take a seat while he made further enquiries. He ignored the sigh of irritation and avoided the haughty stare that greeted his decision. “Constable!” he called over his shoulder. “Take this note to the commander.”

  He turned to the visitor, who had chosen to remain standing. “And now we wait.”

  They waited.

  Ten minutes later a note came back from Superintendent Theotakis, and the bearer was Philippos.

  We have to allow this. I’m sending you an English-speaking officer. It is a condition of the meeting that the sergeant sits in on it.

  With all precautions taken and the female wardress standing by, the visitor and Philippos were escorted to the cells.

  Thetis looked up eagerly from her book when they appeared. “Oh, I say! This is as bad as the London omnibuses! No visitors for hours and then four turn up at once! Are you an execution squad? A bridge party? I don’t wish to be unwelcoming, but—this is a very small cell, you know. There’s only space for two at a time with me in here … Let’s see … I’d say the sergeant is an essential element—Come in, won’t you, Philippos? Good to see you again! Tell me—how’s little Ioannis?”

  Philippos grinned, happy to play her game. “He’s much better, miss. The honey and lemon worked a treat.”

  “Relieved to hear that! It can’t have been much fun … Now, Kyria Papadopoulos can occupy her usual chair in the corridor, which leaves standing room only, I’m afraid, for the envoy from the British Embassy.”

  The constable with the keys fell in with her suggestions, locking her in with the two men and ambling off again down the corridor.

  Thetis turned with outstretched hand and a mischievous smile to the visitor. “My husband! Agamemnon! ‘I hail my lord, safe watchdog of the fold,’” she added, slipping at once into their edgy onstage relationship. “Sorry I can’t offer you a red carpet on which to place your polished Oxfords and—nowhere really to sit. You’ll just have to plonk yourself down on that stool over there. Now … Philippos, do you know Mr. Melton? No? Then allow me to present Geoffrey Melton from the Embassy.

  Diplomat of some sort, he tells me, and—actor. Yes—actor of some distinction. Mr. Melton finds himself in the enviable position of playing both my husband and my lover. Geoffrey, this is Sergeant Georgios. He speaks excellent English, so watch out! If you try to bully me, I shall have a witness. Now, gentlemen, what may I offer you?” She glanced around the austere cell. “Boiled sweet?”

  Melton sighed and muttered Agamemnon’s line: “‘There speaks my wife and the speech—like my absence—far too long!’”

  Suppressing a bark of laughter, Philippos selected a cherry flavour from the bag she held out and, murmuring his thanks, went to perch on the end of the narrow bed. Melton rejected the sweet but made the misjudgement of automatically taking up her offer of a seat on the small three-legged stool she politely pulled forward for him. He folded himself onto it like a piece of collapsible campaign furniture and found he was unable to work out what to do with his long legs. His knees were level with his ears. He separated his legs and, obviously judging that by this masculine pose he risked presenting an offensive spectacle, he at once brought his thighs together and slid them to one side. Not happy with this effeminate side-saddle presentation either, he began to wriggle. His eye level was a good three feet lower than that of the prisoner who chose to stand, with regal composure, looking down at him.

  “And now, why don’t you tell us why you’ve come?” Thetis said with the annoying briskness of a nanny. “And do stop squirming, Geoffrey, dear!”

  Her tone triggered a violent reaction. With a shout of rage, he uncoiled himself and rose to his feet. He kicked the stool away from under him, narrowly missing Thetis, who neatly sidestepped. His angry presence filled the small room with such menace, Philippos leapt up, alarmed, gun in hand and trained on Melton. Melton held out a palm to him in a restraining gesture and began to speak in a voice only just in control. His words were icy, his sentences so short as to verge on rudeness. “Sympathies for your predicament … efforts being made at the highest level … negotiations with the Greek government …”

  Thetis calmly tilted her head up and looked him in the eye. “Geoffrey, if your next sentence doesn’t include the words ‘at liberty,’ I don’t want to hear it and shall ask the sergeant to escort you off the premises.”

  He gave her a tight smile. “Then I’ll quickly say: ‘at large.’” He clicked his heels and sketched a sarcastic bow. “And very soon. The papers are being prepared as we speak. You will be released, probably on bail, pending further enquiries, and will be expected to keep to a designated address and timetable. Part of your timetable—and this is important—will involve the further preparation for and appearance in the first night of the play Agamemnon in the role you contracted to assume and in the associated ceremonies that have been planned for the hour or so afterwards. Everything is to go ahead exactly as discussed.” He stared at her for a moment. “Don’t get into any more trouble or attract the attention of the forces of law and order in any way. The queen’s presence is a vital element, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you.”

  “No indeed, Geoffrey. But the king it is who dies, remember. The queen lives on for a while, to die upon another stage.”

  “There’s no consolation for you in delay.”

  “No, I agree.” And she added in her theatre voice: “‘There’s no escape, my friend, not by delaying.’ Cassandra, poor dear, knew that.”

  “‘But the last moment should be savoured,’” he responded with the next line of the play.

  “‘My time has come. There’s nothing to gain by flight.’”

  “‘You have a brave soul and a gallant heart,’” he concluded, and nodded to Philippos, indicating that the interview was over. He turned to the door and then paused dramatically. “But the discipline of a headless chicken!” he spat.

  Puzzled and beginning to lose the thread of the dialogue, the sergeant, in relief, shouted through the bars for the key.

  Chapter 33

  They watched from the library window as the banker’s men struggled out carrying the chest, wrapped up securely once, again in its concealing old rug, the ends stuck down with parcel tape, and manoeuvred it into the back of the van they had parked in front of the house.

  Letty expressed all their thoughts: “Do you think it’s perfectly safe? It must be worth a king’s ransom.”

  “Andrew considered it safe. Yes, I think it’s better off in a strong room in a basement somewhere under Syntagma Square. Not so much fun as on display here, but—safe. Not so the owner, though, I’m afraid. Perhaps we should stuff you away in a basement under Syntagma for the foreseeable, Miss Laetitia?”

  “You think this Gunay fellow has returned after al
l these years … can it be six?… in search of what he considers still to be his? That he’s cutting a deadly swath through the Merriman family and its heirs?”

  “It’s hard to see how he might think he could retrieve anything,” said Gunning. “Andrew has everything signed, sealed, recorded, and tied up in red ribbons. Impossible for Gunay to get his hands on it again in the political and legal circumstances. He must know that.”

  “They’re off.” Montacute turned from the window with a sigh of relief. “Oh, yes. I’m sure he would know that. Which would make his behaviour doubly puzzling. But there, in the back of that lorry, goes a very compelling motive for murder. And I’m thinking there are those closer to us than Gunay, whoever and wherever he is, who might have got wind of Andrew’s intriguing possession and aim to draw some benefit from it.”

  “Don’t be silly!” Letty protested. “If that’s so and you’re looking for a suspect, you need look no further than me! I’m the one who’s inherited all that. No one else benefits.”

  “But no one, including yourself, was aware of that—beyond the lawyer, of course, and if my judgement of that tight-mouthed young man is right, he wouldn’t vouchsafe the time of day to a watchmaker. On the other hand …” Montacute speculated, “if the said young man were to suddenly discover he’s in love with Letty, cosy up, and seek her hand in marriage, I might admit to a suspicion. In fact any man fancying his chances with Miss Talbot and having prior knowledge of Merriman’s affairs must find himself topping my list of suspects,” he said, with a mild smile for Gunning.