The Atlantis Keystone

by Caroline Väljemark

  TWENTY

  Her shoes against the aging stone steps made a familiar echoing sound. For some reason Emma was nervous as she climbed the stairs to Paul’s office on the third floor of one of the older University buildings. Not only had she not made enough progress on her dissertation, she also had to come face to face with Paul’s temporary replacement who Erik had been sure was the woman who had warned Erik about Paul on his visit to Athens. To make matters worse, she was in fear of breaking down in tears at the sight of Paul’s desk, occupied by someone else only a few days after his disappearance.

  As she approached the closed door to his office she hesitated. Paul had always left his door wide open and Emma was already then forming a disliking towards Professor Brown for not being approachable. How was she supposed to act meeting this person? She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. She almost jumped as a pleasant sounding woman’s voice urged her to come in.

  “You must be Emma”, she said with a smile. She had a friendly face, Emma noted. She stood up and shook Emma’s hand.

  “Yes, pleased to meet you Professor Brown”.

  “Call me Mary,” she said immediately, confirming once and for all that Erik had been right. “I’ve been keen to meet you. I know Paul well and he told me a lot about you and your extraordinary linguistic talent.”

  “I’m sure that…” Emma started to say but was interrupted.

  “No, no need to deny it. I know your background and what you’ve achieved in your years here. All very impressive. I have to say that I’m more than a little eager to hear about your dissertation. We share an interest in Linear A. I’ve spent a few years at Athens University and it’s almost impossible to avoid getting into the whole Linear A and Linear B debate. Please, sit down.” Emma hesitated, wanting to leave the room but sat down.

  “To be completely honest with you, I wish I had made more progress on my dissertation. You might know that I recently accompanied Paul … Professor Simmons … on a research trip to Crete. I spent some time there translating original Linear A texts using Linear B values and made some good headway on that but unfortunately I didn’t get any closer to decipherment and I felt as if I was wasting time, to tell you the truth.” Emma fell silent. Mary looked surprised but seemed to compose herself quickly. Emma was unsure what had prompted this reaction.

  “I understand. Your achievements in Heraklion were good and I think Paul was right to take you. I’m not going to blame you for not having made progress on your dissertation during this time. It’s perfectly understandable.” She hesitated. “But I have to confess that I’m a little surprised. When Paul came to visit me in Athens, I got the impression that some significant progress had recently been made in the decipherment work. Paul gave me that impression. I thought you would have been involved.”

  Emma regained the feeling of having been betrayed by Paul. Had he really made progress without telling her? Had he perhaps had the tablet to help him?! Emma did her best to conceal her inner turmoil. “If he had, he didn’t tell me.”

  Mary didn’t even try to hide her disappointment. “That’s a shame but let’s talk about what you’ve achieved so far and what I can do to help.”

  This was the enquiry Emma dreaded but she gave a summary of the limited progress she had made. To her surprise, Mary’s guidance was helpful and she left Paul’s old office with a feeling of renewed energy to do more work, with some new avenues to think about. Just before she left, she had asked the question which had been constantly on her mind. “I just thought I might ask. Do you have any idea where Paul could be? The police believe he could have had an accident, or may even be dead.”

  “I really don’t know, Emma. All I know is that he asked me to contact the university to offer to cover for him. I agreed of course. I was just about to return to the UK anyway. He said he had to go away for a few weeks but didn’t say where. I didn’t ask. Knowing him he’s probably engulfed in his research somewhere. It wouldn’t be the first time.” She laughed a brief dry laugh, deep in thought for a moment. “Rest assured he will come back soon.”

  Her response was comforting. At least Professor Brown didn’t think Paul was dead.

  Walking home, she was feeling somewhat disgruntled but determined. Mary had sown a seed of doubt in her mind about Paul’s honesty. She didn’t like this at all but it made her resolute to find out who had conducted the Torpa break-in, simply to prove that it wasn’t Paul. But first, she decided, she would pay some attention to her dissertation. Erik had gone to London to see a client and she spent the rest of the afternoon working alone at her desk in her unusually tidy flat. It was late by the time Erik got back, looking drained.

  “Clients!” he said with a sigh. “Looks like my team in Sweden have a busy few days ahead. I need to get back soon unfortunately, in the next few days.”

  In spite of his tiredness he looked stunning, Emma noted. He was still wearing his suit but had taken off his tie and undone the top buttons of his shirt. Having been away from him all day, it was as if she was looking at him with a fresh pair of eyes. He walked over to one corner of the room and started to change clothes. Emma suddenly had a strange flashback to the lake in Sweden when he had been swimming naked.

  “How was your day?” he asked. “Any exciting news about Mary?”

  She told him all about her conversation with Mary. “I would say, either Mary is not telling the whole story or Paul is hiding something,” she finished.

  “I’d probably say it’s both.”

  “There may be a third option though. She might just suspect Paul of something, without knowing for sure whether it’s anything inappropriate or illegal. Maybe she’s looking into it as well”. Erik had finished changing clothes. Wearing grey cotton pyjamas he sat down on the sofa and Emma got up from her desk chair to sit next to him. “Whatever you say Professor Brown has been acting strangely,” she said. “And she basically got Paul’s job at Oxford after his disappearance. She had everything to gain from getting Paul out of the way,” She hesitated for a moment and continued. “She might have had an ulterior motive; to find out more from me about Paul’s progress on Linear A. When I met her today, she said she was surprised that I had not been involved and that I didn’t know what Paul had discovered.”

  “Alright, say she’s involved and that she hired the burglar to steal the tablet at Torpa and at the same time framed Paul, what possible motive could she have had?”

  “The obvious motive would have been to get priority access to the tablet and be the first to decipher Linear A,” she responded quickly. “And to get Paul’s job.”

  “But why frame Paul; I thought they were friends? When I met them in Athens they were very friendly… until Mary started to warn me about Paul behind his back that is. But anyway I don’t think it’s a good enough reason.”

  Emma hesitated. “I suppose, Mary actually seemed like a nice person. I can’t believe she would have committed a crime in pursuit of her own fame and fortune. She simply doesn’t seem like that sort of person.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Erik agreed. “I had the same impression of her, even though I found it a bit strange the way she warned me about Paul and then disappeared from the face of the earth without returning my phone calls.”

  “But what about that Professor in Crete? What was his name?” Emma searched her brain.

  “Professor Palaikastro,” Erik said. “What about him?”

  “Well, he’s another person in all this who may have had an interest in finding the tablet and who also knew Paul”, she suggested. “Who knows what dealings they might have had and what he thought of Paul? For all we know he could have had a particular grudge against Paul for some reason.” She paused and stood up to get her laptop on the desk. “He’s not a pure linguist though, I don’t think. I’m not sure why he would suddenly want to be the first to decipher Linear A, when he’s not within that field and wouldn’t have had the ability to crack the code even with the tablet!”

  “I agree,�
�� Erik said before Emma continued, arguing against herself.

  “But could it be that he was interested in the tablet for the sake of its contents, the possible references to the ten plagues, Atlantis or anything else which he may have read into the half tablet? Or could he have had a particular desire to prevent other people from seeing the other half? He would have known about the ‘opening of the wall’ at Torpa and would have been in close contact with Paul. He would also have known, similar to Mary, of any progress Paul had made. To me, Professor Palaikastro should be a key suspect.”

  “Hm, yes we should consider this,” Erik said. “Thinking about it, why would Professor Palaikastro have lent Paul his yacht? He could have done it to incriminate him – to make it look as if Paul was avoiding flying which would involve scrutiny, hiding and keeping a low profile! That Paul was trying to avoid the authorities certainly crossed my mind when he came to Crete in the yacht.”

  “But what interest would Professor Palaikastro have had in the tablet?” Emma asked, playing the devil’s advocate. “How about we check his background.” She opened her laptop. Erik made himself comfortable on the sofa, leaning back and resting one of his legs on the table. His eyes were bright and he looked at her logging in. She couldn’t believe it was only Monday and that she had only arrived in Oxford the day before. Their eyes met for a split second. He smiled, making his dimples in his cheeks appear. She smirked back. She got her computer up and running and Googled ‘Professor Palaikastro’. The amount of hits was staggering. He had certainly been a busy man over the last twenty or thirty years. Erik looked over her shoulder at the screen. One of the more recent hits which caught their eye was the mention of the professor’s name in connection with a recent study on the origins of the Phoenicians. This study focussed on verifying, by pursuing DNA tests, whether there was any truth in the assertion that the Phoenicians had emigrated from various places to the eastern Mediterranean. Professor Palaikastro had been referred to as one of the authorities in the historical analysis of their findings.

  They continued searching through the hits on the name of the professor but couldn’t find anything which seemed remotely controversial or connected to the messages of the Torpa tablet or Linear A. They found out he was in his sixties, a bit overweight, balding and wore thick glasses. Not exactly pin-up material. His career seemed to have gone up and down with a few highs prompting the mention of his name in the press. He was mainly known for his work on the history of the Mycenaeans but had also done a lot of research on the Phoenicians. Once again they had reached a dead end… In spite of Professor Palaikastro’s dealings with Paul and his yacht, they had not been able to find a strong enough motive for him to somehow steal the tablet or frame Paul. They decided to keep him in mind though. Erik suggested that they should ask Mary about his relationship with Paul and to discuss their thoughts with Laura when they met up with her the following evening.

  They never got a chance to… It was past midnight when Erik’s mobile phone rang. They looked at each other wondering who would call at this hour. Emma’s immediate thought was to Paul. She thought maybe he was trying to get in touch again. She hoped he was ok. She was disappointed when Erik answered in Swedish. It was his mother.

  After a very short conversation, Erik hung up the phone and simply stared out of the window, his face impassive, emotionless except for a slight glistening in his eyes as they reflected the streetlights outside. He didn’t turn his head, he just said: “They have found Anna…”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Sweden, February 2006

  Erik was surprised at his mixed feelings as the plane approached Landvetter airport outside Gothenburg. Hundreds of dark calm lakes were breaking up the green pine tree lined landscape. With his eyes fixed on a few houses next to a lake below them, he found himself struggling not to think about Anna. The shocking news from his mother the night before was still at the forefront of his mind. He had taken the decision to fly home immediately and await the return of Anna’s body. After over a year her remains had been identified among the forgotten bodies of the Tsunami disaster – in Sweden! Not long ago finding her body had been his most urgent wish, save for finding her alive. He had thought that being able to bury her in Sweden near his family at Torpa would have been the only event allowing him to find some sort of closure. But now, after he had finally been able to move on with his life, the news of the find of her remains had ripped open a wound which had only just started to heal. He was once again crying inside, feeling guilty that he had allowed himself to have feelings for someone else.

  He was even feeling a bit awkward about Emma’s presence next to him. She had insisted that she should come with him, to support him like he had supported her and be there for him at the funeral in a few days’ time. He had asked her not to, on the basis that he wanted to be alone but she had been adamant that he needed her and that she would be happy to come. He was debating with himself whether this had been the right decision. Only a few hours had elapsed since his mother’s phone call and it was too early to say. It was almost as if Anna had made a statement from her grave that he should not move on and forget about her. He had allowed himself to fall in love again. Emma had preoccupied his thoughts over the last few months, rather than Anna, and even though his feelings had never been reciprocated, he had sensed over the last few days in Oxford that she was perhaps starting to think of him differently. Was it a coincidence that at this particular point in time, Anna had in a way come back into his life?

  He knew that his thoughts were irrational and that the ghost of Anna was a figment of his imagination but it had been such a strange series of circumstances which had suddenly led to the recovery of her body. His mother had told him the story which she in turn had heard from the Swedish policeman who had visited them at Torpa the evening before to deliver the news in person. It involved the demise of a wealthy Swedish business man and his state of depression and guilt over his acts of lunacy at a time of distress. This man had lost his own wife in the Tsunami on the beach of Khao Lak. They had occupied a beach hut in the same area as Anna and Erik and he had spoken to Anna just before the the waves had struck. He had managed to hang on to a tree but his wife of twelve years had immediately disappeared out of sight. Anna had not even told him her name and he knew nothing about her and vice versa. But those few moments had somehow made a significant impression on him and had been etched into his memory. When Anna had lost her grip and gone under water he had risked his life to save her by jumping in after her. In vain he had searched the waters around him but had soon decided that it was a suicidal task. She was gone. After the event, like Erik, he had spent some time searching for his own wife. It had been an emotional time and when he had come across Anna’s body in one of the make shift morgues it was almost as if he had somehow found something to hold on to, something tangible; perversely almost proof that his own wife was dead. He had later explained to the police that it had felt like the right thing to do at the time. He had not managed to save this beautiful unknown woman from dying but because they had shared the last moments of her life, he had felt a strong connection with her and he had wanted to ensure her safe passage back to Sweden. He refused to leave her. The only way he could take her body to Sweden was to identify her as his own wife. He would later bury her in Sweden under his wife’s name, in a closed coffin. Their two children were able to visit the grave of their mother and never have to wonder whether their mother was still out there in Thailand, dead or alive. That doubt would always be preserved only for himself. After the funeral his life had taken a nasty turn. His oldest child had died in a freak car accident just outside the graveyard where Anna had been buried and in the aftermath he had lost his business; his life savings and his house had been repossessed. The guilt he was feeling over the lie he had told had absorbed him and he had concluded that it had been the ghost of the young woman he had buried in his wife’s place who had sent him mad and who had brought misfortune into his previously happy and prosperous life.
Over a year after the funeral he had taken the decision to come clean; to tell of the crime he had committed and let the body of the unnamed woman return to her rightful home, just like she, he imagined, had demanded. Her coffin had been dug up and the man had helped to identify Anna from photos of missing persons from the Tsunami in Khao Lak. He had looked through over a hundred photos before Anna’s familiar green and brown eyes had stared back at him.

  Despite everything, Erik was grateful to the man. He had been there for Anna in her last moments alive and brought her body back to Sweden, whatever his motive for doing so. He had eventually come clean about his crime; even though it had taken him over a year. It was certainly a tragic story. He was wondering how such an identification blunder could have been allowed to occur. The identification of corpses was conducted using dental records and DNA tests. But he was aware that at the beginning of the identification work, when family members were allowed to identify by inspection, the normal procedures had been side stepped and errors had been admitted by the Swedish authorities. There had been outrage in Sweden about this at the time, in particular as many were of the view that family members would not have been in a psychologically sound state to be able to positively identify their deceased loved ones. Certainly in this unfortunate case, this had proved to be true.

  The plane touched down. After passport control and baggage collection they were once again breathing Swedish air. It was relatively cold but no snow. Emma was trying her best to cheer him up, happily chatting on about how wonderful it was to be back in Sweden and how she was looking forward to working on her dissertation in the Torpa library. Nowhere else had she felt more relaxed and focussed. She described Torpa as a second home. This did cheer Erik up, as he took this as a sure sign that she at least enjoyed his company. She also suggested that being near the scene of the crime would allow them to make progress on the search for the person who may have set Paul up. Even though it was normally quite costly, they took a taxi from the airport to the estate. As always, the trip took an hour. In this hour Emma had talked Erik through all angles of her dissertation that she was planning to cover over the next couple of weeks. Linguistics normally didn’t interest Erik and he was only half listening to her. The other half of his brain was planning his wife’s overdue funeral. One of the main questions was where to bury her. He knew where Anna herself would have preferred. He was unsure whether this would be appropriate though. The place was not a burial site.