The Tomb of Zeus

by Barbara Cleverly

  Letty leaned over, admiring the swift strokes of his pencil, recognising the economical conventions for rock, soil, and vegetation she'd seen him use in Burgundy. He never showed any sign of irritation or discomfort when she peered over his shoulder, tending rather to involve her in the process with his comments as a drawing master might. She was more likely to hear an inviting: “Come and see this, Letty!” than a tetchy: “I say—do you mind!”

  “You're quiet, Letty. Am I getting this wrong? Or are you having second thoughts?”

  “No, no! I was just thinking about Phoebe,” she replied. “I was looking forward to getting back to the Europa to share the news of our discoveries. She was so eager to hear. I can't believe she won't be there, William. It's ridiculous—I only knew her for a day or two but…but…she flashed across my world like a shooting star. It's a cliché—don't tell me!—but sometimes a hackneyed old phrase is exactly the one you reach for—for the good reason that it says exactly what you want. She was gone in an instant but the light she gave out stays on in my mind's eye.”

  “Quite agree,” he said gruffly and busied himself with a piece of hectic cross-hatching.

  Unsatisfied by his response, she persisted, determined to communicate her feeling of loss. “So much I was looking forward to…it's…it's like missing the boat train, hearing that Christmas is cancelled…She was snatched away in the middle of a conversation and I'm still waiting to hear her answer.”

  He remained silent, his pencil moving swiftly over the page.

  “You know, William, it was Phoebe I was really going to be reporting to. Not Theodore. Oh, he would have—will—read the written accounts, assess the scale drawings, and assign dates to each stratum as we uncover it, but the real story of the dig I'd have kept for her. Those keen, clever boys this morning…the shy, loving one so determined to hold on to his stone—she'd have wanted to hear about that!”

  “I'm sure she would.” Gunning was refusing to be drawn down into her grief.

  “Her death turns all this poking about among the dry bones of the past into an irrelevance, don't you think? Here we are, along with eight good men and true, all armed with spades and raring to go…but I'm wondering—what are we doing here in this strange place, William? Seeking to unearth a foreign god, buried thousands of years deep. If he existed at all. And Phoebe, so alive I can still hear her laughing, is lying scarcely cold and not yet buried. Demanding…deserving answers.”

  “Know what you mean. You needn't go on.”

  He turned his head away from her. Hiding his emotion? Letty was instantly contrite for her self-indulgent outburst. Gunning had known Phoebe for several months. They'd had time to grow close. It was thoughtless of her to trail her own distress in front of him when he was struggling to deal with his own. Letty sensed that there had been a warm relationship between the two, and was not surprised by the notion. Women were drawn to Gunning. She'd noticed it early in their acquaintance, while affecting to find it inexplicable. She remembered wondering about the attraction out loud to her friend Esmé.

  “You're asking what might be his special qualities?” Esmé had seemed very ready to give the problem her serious attention. “I mean, apart from his good looks, charm, wit, and chestful of medals? Well…let me try to think beyond those…You know, Letty, it could be that he's so jolly mysterious. Oh, I know you've ferreted out enough information on him for an entry in Who's Who or even a slim monograph, but he's no clear rushing stream is he?”

  Esmé, the aspirant student of psychology, was always prepared to abandon scientific vocabulary to indulge in female chatter and speculation. “I think of him as a deep pool. Half the surface is in sunlight, the other shadowed by the overhanging branches of a tree.”

  “Just the conditions to encourage a heavy growth of pond life,” Letty had sniffed.

  “If you like. And what's wrong with that? It's not a barren medium we're considering and women sense that. ‘Here are possibilities!’ they think. ‘There's something stirring in the depths of those blue eyes and—who knows?—perhaps I shall be the one who is granted a glimpse of it.’”

  “Well, I've had a glimpse,” Letty told her friend. “And I've learned to look the other way. You'd think blue eyes could only be serene and cool but Gunning's can scorch.”

  “Well, you must have done something desperately annoying,” said Esmé. “I don't recall him scorching any of the available ladies you paraded for him when he was staying with you and Sir Richard before you went off to Burgundy. Sophie Carlisle, I know, was very interested…and Patty Templeton was embarrassingly keen—”

  “That'll do, Esmé!”

  Had perhaps Phoebe joined the circle of Gunning's admirers? Perhaps she had found Gunning's company a welcome change from that of her forceful, self-absorbed husband?

  “Do you suppose she really existed—Phaedra? The younger daughter of the king?” she asked Gunning, unable to switch her mind from Phoebe's preoccupations. “Do you think she might have watched Theseus performing in the bullring and fallen in love with him? What must she have felt when her older sister ran off with him?”

  “Oh, yes, indeed, I do believe she existed,” he said, willingly distracted by the question. “Why not? It's time we began to accept the myths and legends as more than folk stories. There was a time, after all—and not so long ago—when no one seriously thought there had ever been an early Cretan culture. And when the first signs of it came to light, archaeologists casually referred to it as ‘Mycenaean.’ It took strong evidence unearthed by the spade to make everyone understand that Agamemnon and his stout lads were newcomers, adventurers. His descendants seized on a moment of weakness and invaded the island. They imposed their warrior culture on a much more ancient and graceful one. If I had to choose between them— no contest!”

  “But you'd wonder why we hear so little in ancient writings about Crete and so much about the early Greek states of the mainland?”

  “The victors write the history, tell the tales. Negative propaganda. All sides attempted it in the recent war, remember? The masculine Greeks—Hellenes, I suppose we should call them—whichever city they came from, and perhaps it was Athens?—when they mentioned the vanquished at all, dismissed Minoan culture as effete, goddess-worshipping hedonists, ruled by a king, but a king who was much less noteworthy than his scandalous mother, wife, and daughters. I don't think it's quite fit for an innocent young girl to hear what they are reputed to have got up to, but I think we can take it that what we have is an upstanding Hellene's disgusted propaganda: ‘See what happens when you let the women get above themselves!’”

  He paused to whittle his pencil back to sharpness. Studying the point, he added: “And let's not forget that it was the descendants of the Mycenaeans—warrior societies themselves—who hit on the means of preserving their national histories by writing them down.”

  “Those hundreds of clay tablets Dr. Evans discovered—they reveal a language, surely? How tantalising! When someone's deciphered them we'll know much more about our Minoans. Though from their appearance…” She frowned. “So fragmented…they don't strike one as containing a body of literature. Are we looking at a Cretan Iliad? Hymns to the Gods of Homeric style?”

  Gunning chuckled. “Much more likely to be someone's laundry list.”

  “So nothing for it but to go on digging.”

  “This is why I'm so intrigued by the possibilities of this site, Letty. We may find some explanation of what happened on this island over three thousand years ago. Why did the palaces burn? Why did such a powerful and peaceable civilisation come to an end? Were the invaders, bringing their god Zeus with them, any more than piratical adventurers? Did they carry off Phaedra to marry the King of Athens in a symbolic union between the two cultures?” He grinned. “One last question—where's archaeology been all my life?”

  “You can understand why Theodore became so obsessed with it.”

  “Oh, yes! I'd really like to despise him but I find I can't. If I were an envious
man, I could envy him. I can understand all Theo's enthusiasms.”

  Letty was silenced, swallowing suspicions which threatened to choke her.

  “Oh, look! We're getting the thumbs-up from Aristidis,” he said. “Your spoil heap has got the green light, it seems. Let digging commence.”

  He looked again at the space before them and Letty, to her own surprise, was prompted to make the sign of the cross. “Just taking out a little insurance! Well, you can never be sure what deity's lurking about and this place has a…would the word be ‘numinous’? …it'll do…numinous feel to it. There may be spirits to placate!” she told him.

  “Then this is what you do.”

  He stood up, marched forward a few paces, selected his spot, and struck the ancient pose of salute and dedication she'd seen on figurines in the museum, left arm by his side, the back of his right hand held to his forehead. “But if you were thinking of offering up a white heifer before we start, you can forget it,” he called back. “My sacerdotal skills don't run to knife work.”

  “All the same…it mightn't be a bad idea to make yourself agreeable to the god of this place,” said Letty. She looked out to sea and scuffed about in a patch of loose limestone at her feet, needing to make closer contact with the earth. Almost to herself she murmured, “He's here, you know.”

  He's here!”

  Olivia Stoddart had rushed into her husband's study, for once not pausing to knock. Harold, at his desk, looked up in puzzlement.

  “Inspector Mariani's here. Were you expecting him so soon? He has a file in his hand.”

  “Calm down, Ollie! Yes, we might well expect Kosta to be bringing us the results of the autopsy, and I'm sure he'll want me to have sight of the report before he goes public with it. By which I mean…before he tells the Russells what the findings are. He'll pass it in front of me as her family doctor, but not entirely for professional good manners. He'll want me to comment in case there's a glaring error. Act as medical backstop. Michael Benson was scheduled to do the autopsy. Sound physician. Trained in London with Spilsbury We're jolly lucky to have him on the island. I'm not expecting any problems. Now—is Kosta by himself or has he come mob-handed?”

  “There's Kosta and two constables. Can't imagine why he always needs an escort. A provincial doctor and a retired nurse hardly constitute much of a threat, I'd have thought.”

  “I think our inspector enjoys doing a bit of swaggering! Creating an impression. Got his sights on higher things. And I don't disapprove…very able young man. Another one the islanders should be thankful to have.”

  “Well, I sent the men to the kitchen for refreshment. I didn't fancy the idea of them standing about, shuffling their feet with boredom. They'll have a happier time gossiping by the stove with Despina.” She glanced at the clock. “It's near enough to teatime. I've asked for it to be served to the three of us in the drawing room. I hope that suits you?”

  “That'll do well. Go back to our guest and I'll join you in a minute. And—Olivia!—do stop fluttering!”

  Harold looked anxiously after her and wondered again what emotion it was that was pushing his habitually competent wife—so calmly prosaic as to be infuriating at times—to this sustained show of nervous tension. He'd enquired solicitously, commiserating with her on the loss of a close friend, said all the right things in the shocking circumstances, but still her demeanour worried him. He began to wonder just how close the two women had really been. Should he be concerned? A strange friendship, people must have thought: Phoebe a ball of glinting quicksilver, Olivia a bar of iron. Inflexible and obdurate perhaps, but iron had been known to shatter under stress. The right kind of stress, effectively applied.

  He'd privately thought it a mistake to encourage the association—bound to end in some sort of disaster and, of course, he'd be the one left carrying the can. And he'd said as much. But the death of Phoebe was not the disaster he'd envisaged. Could Ollie's nervous state be occasioned by some confidence the younger woman had rashly shared with her? Surely not?

  Harold breathed deeply, bracing himself for the coming encounter. He conjured up the worst possible scenario in preparation. He rehearsed a few defensive phrases. Professionally, nothing good could come of it, he feared, and, on a personal level, it could herald a complete unravelling of the fabric of his life. He tightened his tie, tugged down the sleeves of his tweed jacket, and set off for the drawing room to meet Inspector Mariani.

  They settled, pleasantries over, tea politely tasted and then set aside, the Stoddarts together on a sofa opposite the inspector, who had drawn up a chair magisterially facing them. In his uniform, glinting with a cargo of gold frogging, the young man was impressive.

  “Why don't you just read it out, Kosta…er, Inspector?” Harold suggested. He reminded himself that this was no informal soirée and they were not conversing across the bridge table. “Then we are all three considering each point at the same time. Save passing the thing around. All that ‘I say, could we just refer back to section three, para six above’ stuff! Can be very tedious, you know!”

  “Of course.” Mariani smiled genially. Judging by the way he held the sheets of the report in his left hand with a pen at the ready in his right it was exactly what he'd planned to do.

  He set off reading quickly through the routine phrases which, he was aware, Stoddart knew by heart. Clipped and efficient, not a word of the autopsy report was superfluous, nor yet were there any omissions. Harold nodded sage approval as he listened to his colleague Benson's account. “Good man, Benson,” he murmured at one point.

  They worked their way through the brief analyses of the state of the decedent's heart, lungs, stomach, and other organs. Nothing noteworthy here. There was even a toxicology report. Again, all was normal. Benson had, in his opening phrases, mentioned that the cadaver appeared to weigh at least one stone less than one might have expected for Mrs. Russell's height and age, but this was the only thing that fixed his attention.

  Mariani's voice indicated that at this point they were to leave the security of the well-worn phrase, the reassurance of the “indicates nothing untoward” part of the report.

  Harold glanced at his wife. He really had no idea how she would react to the details of the death, which he knew were coming. He'd forbidden her to go to the morgue to see Phoebe's body, and wondered whether that was wise. Ollie had been a battlefield nurse in Mespot, for God's sake! She'd worked at his elbow, seeing horrors no woman should ever be exposed to, and without a murmur. But her patients were young men, fighting men, unknown to her, and Harold guessed that the sight of her friend—never a pretty one where hanging and asphyxia were involved—might be overwhelming. He'd been impressed by the cool practicality that young archaeologist woman had shown…what was her name?…Laetitia Talbot? That was it! Sharp-eyed little thing. He'd thought for a moment she'd noticed, but she'd been easily distracted. And, unworldly English miss that she was, was it likely that she'd have spotted it?

  “Better to remember Phoebe as she was, Olivia, my dear,” he'd advised. And, rather to his surprise, Ollie had obeyed.

  The cause of death was compression of the neck resulting from complete suspension of the body from a noose. Blood vessels including the carotid arteries had been completely closed, and also the air passages. Cerebral anoxia resulted, followed by loss of consciousness…hyoid bone fractured and dislocation of the spine consistent with a drop from a height had occurred at the atlanto-axial joint…

  Olivia leaned over and whispered, “So she didn't suffer, Harold. Something to be thankful for.”

  So far, so predictable. Harold nodded reassuringly at the inspector as he paused between paragraphs.

  “The next point is of interest as it may answer our questions regarding the bruising on Mrs. Russell's legs,” said Mariani.

  He passed a diagram and a photograph to Dr. Stoddart. “It is impossible to determine,” he read out, “the timing of these bruises, from clinical inspection alone, and information as to their origin should be
sought from other sources. They could have been caused premortem but, equally, they may be the result of brusque handling of the corpse by others (in an effort to save life? To release the corpse from suspension?). Pressure of—say-fingers, applied with the force of emergency, could have caused blood vessels to rupture after death in areas already engorged with postmortem hypostasis and ooze blood into the tissues. Visually, the effect of this would be indistinguishable from antemortem bruising.”

  “Miss Talbot and George Russell each manhandled the body,” Stoddart interrupted. “So that's inconclusive…unless…”

  At a glance from the inspector, he fell silent.

  “I think, if I continue, you'll find the next paragraph goes some way to answering your concern. May I?”

  The pathologist added that there were no signs of an attack of a sexual nature nor evidence of recent sexual activity.

  The smallest sigh of relief from Olivia went unnoticed by the inspector but was picked up by Harold.

  “So.” Mariani riffled through the papers. “We are almost at the end, and to this point—no surprises.” He selected the last typed page and looked it over again in silence. The Stoddarts, watching keenly his expression, were uneasy to see it grow increasingly sombre.

  “Mr. Benson made an additional discovery which he includes, as he says: ‘…since this evidence may well determine the outcome of the deliberations of the coroner. It could be a factor in ascribing the cause of death to suicide or to homicide, a decision which will be made by others, in another place, at a later date. The condition cannot, of course, be described as directly causal in her death, yet could well prove to have been a factor.’”

  “And he continues…”

  Mariani stopped, marked his place with a finger, and looked Stoddart in the eye. Without emphasis, he enquired: “At what moment, Doctor, did you become aware that Mrs. Russell was pregnant?”