by Ann Turner
• • •
Our hotel in Heraklion was a small boutique overlooking the port and old fortress, whose pale stone edifice dominated the view with its cannon parapets and vast bulk built centuries ago by the Venetians to protect the city. Katina, a slim, charismatic girl in her early twenties, dark eyes radiant beneath fair hair, led us to our room.
‘You’re new here?’ I asked.
‘Mmm. I came back to Crete about three months ago. No work in Athens anymore. I’m a trained school teacher and now I must do this.’ She sighed and gazed at Stephen.
‘These things are cyclical,’ he said. ‘I’m sure one day you’ll get to teach. What subjects do you take?’
‘Maths and science.’
‘Come to Australia, there’s always a shortage in those areas,’ said Stephen and Katina visibly melted under his charm. She unlocked a door and we entered a small, cramped room, not like my usual one. I walked to the French doors and opened up the view for Stephen, but the blast of traffic noise was so fierce I had to quickly shut them again. Katina noticed our disappointment.
‘Perhaps I show you another room?’ she said brightly to Stephen and led us through passageways that smelled deliciously of sea air. We made our way to the uppermost tip of the hotel and Katina swung open a door. On entering, it was like we were in the prow of a ship, looking out across the fortress and harbour and beyond to the deep blue Sea of Crete. A breakwater snaked out from the fortress, disappearing in a vanishing line. On the tiny balcony we could see for miles and the only sound was the hushed murmur of the wind.
I turned, delighted, and Stephen was already grinning at Katina.
‘I’ll leave you to freshen up,’ she said flirtatiously to him, ignoring my presence entirely.
‘This is great. Thanks.’ He passed her a fistful of euros, which she acknowledged with a demure dip of her head, brown eyes flashing up and gazing directly into his.
I was glad when the door shut behind her.
Stephen chuckled. ‘Youth.’
I wanted to call her something else but refrained. ‘Hungry?’ I asked. ‘There’s a delicious taverna just down the road.’
Half an hour later the saganaki prawns sizzled on our plates, covered with cheese and tomato.
‘Wash it down with this.’ I poured yellow gold into Stephen’s glass. ‘From Santorini. You’ll never taste another wine like it. Nectar of the gods.’
We drank and ate as if we hadn’t seen food for years and at the end of the meal we could barely move.
‘I need a sleep,’ announced Stephen, yawning lazily and looking out upon the brightly coloured boats anchored in the harbour.
I glanced at my watch. ‘Better go.’ Pecking Stephen’s cheek I left him with the remnants of the wine.
I caught the bus, crowded with eager tourists, to the palace of Knossos. As the motley cafe and souvenir shops came into view, Burton Bennett, sea-blue eyes wide with anticipation, blond hair neatly cut, was waiting in the shade of a tree. His twisted legs in his wheelchair sent a pang of sadness whipping through me. Burton had always been the most athletic of us at university, the keenest and strongest member of the digs we visited as students, and true to form he hadn’t let the accident diminish his passion; he was the only one of our crowd who still spent his time on location year round. An eminent scholar, he had not wasted his enormous talent like so many. He published and excavated with a force that left the rest of us far back, muddling around in the world of academia and domesticity.
I had often wondered if I’d stayed that day on the island of Lefnakos and been trapped with Burton in the collapse whether I would have had his capacity to survive, to keep alight the dream of discovery when my career had just robbed me of my mobility. I doubted I’d have been as brave.
‘My dear, it’s really you!’ he exclaimed as he wheeled towards me. We kissed and hugged, and then he hugged some more.
‘You’ll crick my neck,’ I laughed, managing to extricate myself.
‘Sorry. We don’t get a lot of good-looking girls around here.’
‘I doubt that,’ I snorted, wanting to send him straight down to our hotel to distract Katina.
Burton’s electric wheelchair zoomed in the opposite direction to the way I turned.
‘There’s a new dig behind the palace,’ he called. ‘Come and see.’
My body sprang alive as the pegged-out pit came into view, a roped-off area full of dirt rich with possibilities from millennia ago. ‘What have you found?’ I asked like a kid in a lolly shop.
‘Only a bit of old gold,’ Burton replied mischievously. ‘A cup and a ring.’ I followed him excitedly into a tent, where photographs of the finds were neatly arranged on a table. Hammered into the side of the gold cup was a leaping bull, its muscles straining as it tore through a veil of netting, breaking free.
‘Minoan,’ I whispered. ‘Much more intricate than the Vapheio Cups.’
‘And the Vapheios were found on the mainland,’ said Burton. ‘Not here on Crete.’
I found it hard to speak. ‘Where are . . . have they gone to Athens?’
Burton wheeled next to me. ‘I knew you were coming, didn’t I?’ He leaned so close I could feel his warm breath on my neck. ‘Later,’ he said happily.
I picked up a photo of the ring, my hands trembling with anticipation. It was a signet ring, used to imprint a mark of its owner into wax. It depicted in even finer detail two leaping bulls with ladies in flowing robes dancing around them in perhaps a fertility ritual.
‘Can we go back to your place for tea?’ I said, more as an order than a question.
‘In due course. But I want you to clamber through the palace first because a dear friend awaits.’
I had to walk fast to keep up, my head spinning from the beauty and richness of the site’s finds.
‘The chair’s new,’ Burton said. ‘I buzz around in it ten times faster than I used to. Which is necessary. We’ve had massive scale-backs here in the past few months. The Brits have sent two-thirds of their lot home, and the Yanks are almost invisible they’ve been cut so badly. Sometimes I fear I’ll be the only one left standing. Well, so to speak.’ He grinned.
‘Things are bad at Coastal too.’
‘How’s that Dean of yours? Priscilla?’
‘That’s one of the things I want to talk to you about.’
The sun was bleaching the landscape in clear white light laced with tones of honey. It was piercingly hot and wonderfully familiar.
‘The sun has teeth,’ Burton quipped in Greek.
‘I enjoy being eaten,’ I replied in Greek. ‘It’s so good being back.’ I reverted to English. ‘I miss Crete, I wish all this wasn’t halfway across the planet.’ I breathed in deeply. ‘I love that chalky smell, and the silence that seems to seep out of the rocks. And I can’t believe what you’ve found.’ I tapped Burton’s strong arm.
‘My team can’t either. We’re very lucky,’ said Burton as we went through the upper floor of the palace that archaeologist Arthur Evans had excavated in 1900. He’d named it ‘Minoan’ after the mythical King Minos, imagining that beneath was the labyrinth home of the Minotaur, half-man, half-beast, a hungry devourer of virgins.
We moved through a small stone room in which a reproduction of a famous fresco, a leaping bull with a man jumping over its back, was not dissimilar to the ring I’d just seen. Tourists crowded around but the original had been taken long ago to Athens for safekeeping. I peered through to the mural, looking at it afresh today.
‘Similar but different,’ I noted. ‘The bulls on the ring have much more detail.’
‘Earlier?’
‘Definitely.’
Burton grinned, basking in his find, and whirred down a ramp.
‘Do you think Stephen could have an affair with Priscilla?’ I asked.
Burton snapped to a stop. ‘Has he?’
‘I don’t know. You haven’t heard any gossip?’
‘No. Troy and Richard know Priscilla well. They’v
e not said anything. And I Skype them regularly.’
‘Could you ask them next time? Don’t say it comes from me, I’ve spoken to virtually no one about this.’
‘I’ll try tonight before dinner if you like?’
I paused.
‘Are you sure you want me to ask them?’ said Burton, concerned.
‘I’m impossible, aren’t I? I promised myself I’d get away from everything on this trip but as soon as I see you it comes out. Perhaps I don’t want to know. Well, not now.’
‘Why didn’t you ask me before? When you were home.’
‘I didn’t want to upset you. I know how you worry.’
Burton took my hand and I noticed how baby soft his skin still was, unlike mine, which was showing its age.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I would have been beside myself thinking of that hairy bastard hurting you. You know I’ve never trusted Stephen.’
‘Why is that?’
Burton studied me like something he’d just found in a dig. ‘You’ve never asked me that in all these years. You’ve only ever defended him.’
‘Well, perhaps I’m ready to listen.’
‘You know I’m blunt.’
‘Fully aware – and I’ll probably disagree with everything you say.’
The light seared our eyes as Burton headed under a fir tree, where he wheeled to face me. I sat down in the baked dirt, looking up at him like an acolyte to Plato, surprised I had let it get to this.
‘I’ve always thought Stephen would make a good spy,’ said Burton. ‘He’s the type MI5 would have recruited at Oxford in the thirties. You never see all there is with him.’
I swallowed my instinctive reaction to rebut Burton. ‘He retrenched staff recently,’ I said, and my voice trailed off – I didn’t want to speak ill of Stephen, even if I was encouraging Burton to do so.
‘Really? And I bet he only told you after the event?’
I didn’t reply, which he knew meant yes.
‘I can imagine him having an affair with Priscilla because they’re quite alike.’
‘Oh, please don’t say that.’
Burton shrugged. ‘They’re wolves. Opportunistic and hungry. I know this is harsh but I suspect Stephen would get a kick out of sleeping with your immediate superior. A sort of warped power play. Do you still have sex?’
Burton’s eyes were shining like an animal’s. He had taken on a rat-like quality, but I let him continue.
‘You don’t have to answer that but I would surmise no or not very often. “Damned whores and gods’ police” as Anne Summers once said. The virgin and the call girl. I’ve known Stephen longer than you and as teenagers he played that out over and over. He’d two-time the prettiest girls: one would be a slut and the other Mother Teresa.’
My mouth was drying up. Burton wouldn’t stop without me telling him to. He might have known Stephen longer, but surely I knew my husband far better?
‘What’s always annoyed me is that Stephen pretends to be so moral and everyone thinks he’s the Great Man. When he talks the rest of us shut up, as though we mere mortals could never come close to his wisdom. It’s complete bunkum. If I looked like him and came from his privileged background, I guess colleagues would treat me like that too. Instead, I churn out books and research and never come close to receiving his accolades.’
‘That’s not true.’ I finally found my voice. ‘And you went to the same school, so you both came from privilege. Stephen’s parents weren’t wealthy. They devoted their lives to medical research but they earned next to nothing. I think that’s why Stephen became an economist.’
‘Anyway, as I was saying,’ interrupted Burton testily. ‘To answer your question, there’s a lot more to Stephen than you’ve ever realised. And none of it pleasant.’ Burton sat back, almost licking his lips. ‘I’ve been wanting to say that for years. Sorry. I don’t know how to sugar-coat things anymore. I spend too much time alone.’
‘I asked.’ I sat rubbing my fingers in the dust, unable to move.
‘I think you’re ready for a bit of truth, Pollyanna.’
‘Burton, I’ve been accused of fraud.’
• • •
We sat for an hour talking through everything that had happened and, in the end, a very startled Burton promised he’d use all his extensive contacts to find a way to get an introduction to the Athenian bank manager or failing that, the young assistant or another member of staff. He would make it his mission to discover who had set up the Athens 2 and 3 accounts and who had followed me to the bank.
‘Here you are! I’ve been looking everywhere!’
I almost jumped out of my skin but was delighted to see Maria Kelikarkis, who was the size of a doll and well into her eighties. The tour-guide identification dangling from her neck was an ingénue shot of a bee-hived young lady from over half a century ago. Today Maria was dressed in a beautifully cut fire-engine-red suit finished off with a flamboyant blue scarf. Although she was decades older than her photo, her eyes still held the vibrancy of youth and her hair, dyed a rich black, was cut in a contemporary style. She made all her clothes herself and lived off the tips from tourists, but to the outside world Maria bore the appearance of a wealthy woman – and one who was heart-warmingly vain.
‘Burton told me you were coming. I couldn’t wait to catch up!’ she cried.
I leaped from the ground and she stood on tiptoe, kissing both my cheeks as I leaned down to embrace her.
‘Maria, I’ve missed you!’
‘She’s missed everything about Crete,’ Burton said drily, annoyed by the interruption even though he’d arranged it.
‘I had a dream about you the other night. Is everything all right?’ Maria asked.
‘Sort of,’ I said.
‘No, it’s not,’ said Burton. ‘It’s not all right at all.’
Maria had been our den-mother on the digs long ago when she’d been the Greek liaison. I burst into tears as I absorbed the pervasive warmth of her tiny hand tucked into mine. She sat down and proceeded to wrap me firmly under her wing.
‘In my dream you were in the labyrinth,’ she gave a little squeeze.
‘Theseus or the Minotaur?’ asked Burton.
‘No, she was following Ariadne’s woollen ball but she wasn’t Theseus. He was behind you.’ She turned to me. ‘You were in between the ball and the man. The follower and the followed.’ Her eyes pierced mine. ‘The investigator and the investigated. That was what I felt as I woke. Are you in trouble, Rebecca? I tried to telephone you and you can imagine my surprise when Burton told me the next day that you were travelling here. Maybe I’ve spent my life reading too many Greek myths but I have the strangest sense that you need help. My dear, what is it?’
The shock of her insight halted my tears. Drawing a deep breath I stared at the tiny woman, so perfectly groomed she looked like an exquisite museum exhibit.
‘Promise you’re sworn to secrecy? Only you and Burton can be in on this.’
‘Of course,’ she said matter-of-factly, switching to Greek as a group of American girls sauntered past. ‘They call me the vault.’
Burton cut in, outlining the whole situation, punctuated by gasps from Maria, who clapped her bird-like hand to her mouth on several occasions, eyes widening to heavily made-up full moons.
‘I have a cousin who works in that bank. Sofia,’ she said when the story had been told. ‘We’ve always been close. With your permission, I’ll speak to her?’
‘That would be wonderful,’ Burton and I replied together, and Maria laughed gaily.
‘You must take this seriously,’ said Burton.
‘Sorry. I’ve always loved espionage.’ Maria’s eyes twinkled.
‘When can you contact her?’ I asked.
Maria checked her watch. ‘She’ll be home cooking dinner by about seven and it’s best to reach her on a full stomach. She’s from the large side of the family and is an angry bear when hungry but a lamb once full.’
‘Would I have seen he
r at the bank?’
‘Did you notice a giantess with a mane of black hair?’
I shook my head. ‘I’d certainly remember that. How old is she?’
‘Much younger than me. Young enough to be my niece.’
‘I’d like to meet her,’ said Burton.
‘Well, you might,’ replied Maria. ‘I’ll play it by ear. Sometimes it’s better to do these things face to face.’
‘I’m happy to pay your airfare,’ I said. ‘In fact, I’d insist.’
‘Then that’s settled. I’ve been wanting a trip to Athens,’ said Maria. ‘I can stay with Sofia. That way if she’s evasive I can pin her down. Burton, have you any business to do in Athens? It might be useful having you there.’
‘I’ll pay for you too, Burton, of course,’ I said.
‘That won’t be necessary,’ he replied. ‘I need to get that gold to the museum. God knows I’ve run out of excuses for keeping it here. They’re starting to pressure me.’ He paused dramatically. ‘So, anyone for a viewing?’
‘He told me I’d have to wait till you came,’ crowed Maria. ‘Let’s go!’
As we headed through the long shadows cast by the palace ruins I was grateful to Maria for turning my misfortune into an adventure. For a moment it helped give the nightmare a fresh perspective.
‘There must be a solution,’ she announced. ‘Together we’ll get to the truth.’
• • •
Burton passed us white cotton gloves and donned a pair himself. He punched in the combination to the safe and with all the care in the world lifted out a tray on which sat the treasures. He passed me the cup, about the size of my palm, its gold gleaming with a rich warmth, a lustre formed by centuries. I turned it carefully, holding my breath. The flexed muscles of the bull were so realistic it seemed incomprehensible they were formed by the precision of hammer blows.
‘Around 1900 BC,’ I whispered in awe. ‘Much older than the Vapheio Cups.’
‘The work of a genius,’ Burton replied and Maria turned white.