The Orpheus Descent

by Tom Harper

  No mention of how they’d parted. By mutual agreement, it had never happened.

  ‘Nothing yet.’ Yet. In the cold hard corner of his mind that provided a running commentary, he wondered when yet became ever.

  ‘Did you translate the tablet?’ he said.

  ‘I did what I could. There’s not a lot there, darling. More or less the same as the others that have already been published.’

  ‘Can you send it to me?’

  ‘If you like. I’ll e-mail it. I’d better go now and get dressed. Look after yourself.’

  He put the phone down. On the bookcase, he saw the book he’d brought back from Sibari, the battered old Penguin Classic of Plato’s Republic. He took it down and flipped through, wondering if it had anything to do with Orphic tablets. But there wasn’t an index, and he was too tired to process the snatches he read.

  He saw the inscription on the inside cover again.

  To Lily—

  Love is Truth, Adam

  He snapped the book shut and went to the fridge. He was out of beer, but he found vodka in the cupboard. He splashed it over a couple of ice cubes and drank quickly, glad of the cold in his mouth. It calmed the shaking inside him. He poured another glass.

  A chime from the open laptop said an e-mail had arrived. The familiar stab of hope subsided as he saw it was from Charis, sending through her translation. He started reading but stopped halfway.

  The text was no different – and it unnerved him. Reading it seemed to lock up his brain, to drop him in a dream chasing down an endless tunnel.

  The words of Memory, carved in gold

  For the hour of your death.

  Why was that the last thing Lily wrote?

  While he had the computer on, he tabbed back to Lily’s Facebook page. The message he’d left the day before was still at the top – but now there was a comment underneath it. Someone called Sandi McConn had replied.

  I was on the dig. I was the conservator.

  The message had come through five minutes ago – she was still online. He hit the chat button.

  Jonah: Can I talk to you? About the dig?

  Sandi: NDA

  Jonah: ?

  Sandi: Non-disclosure agreement. I signed one

  They were in a public thread. Did that have something to do with it?

  Jonah: Where are you in the real world?

  Sandi: Right now London. Flying home tomorrow

  Jonah: Can we meet?

  This time, he had to wait for her answer. Time for doubts to flood in. Had she wandered off? Was she really in London? Was she even who she said she was – or just words on a screen?

  Sandi: Can you come to Paddington?

  Jonah: When?

  Sandi: Now

  Sandi McConn was a slim, pretty woman, about the same age as Jonah, with a short brown bob and three silver rings in each ear. She stood and waved at him across the coffee shop.

  ‘I recognised you from your photos. Lily liked to show you off.’

  Jonah flushed. His throat tightened; tears threatened, though he knew they wouldn’t come. Watertight, Lily used to call him.

  ‘I’ll get a coffee.’

  By the time he’d navigated the queue, he’d calmed down. He sat opposite her and stirred swirls in his cup.

  Only three people on the dig knew the safe combination. Doctor Andrews himself, the conservator …

  ‘I saw what you put on Facebook about Lily,’ Sandi said. She hesitated. ‘I hope she turns up.’

  ‘Thanks. And thanks for seeing me. It’s lucky you were in London.’

  ‘For you, I guess.’

  ‘I know how busy you are.’

  She gave him an odd look. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Richard said you were off to another job.’

  ‘Did he?’

  He was missing something. ‘Is that not true?’

  Sandi leaned back. ‘I told you, I signed a non-disclosure agreement when I started, and another one when I left. They don’t like people talking about the dig. And they really don’t like people talking about how they got fired.’

  ‘You? But they said you were one of the best people they had.’

  ‘Gee, that’s nice.’ A savage smile. ‘Maybe they’ll give me a reference.’

  He held up his hands in a ‘way over my head’ gesture.

  ‘I was supposed to finish the dig yesterday, lay over a day in London and head back to Canada tomorrow. I’ve been sitting on my ass in London for the last week because I couldn’t change my flight.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘That would be the “non-disclosure” part of my non-disclosure agreement.’

  ‘Was it to do with the gold tablet?’ he guessed.

  Sandi leaned back on the seat. Her slim fingers wrapped around her coffee mug. ‘Unless I read it wrong, that’s covered by the NDA too.’

  ‘I spoke to Richard Andrews this afternoon. He told me all about it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The tablet’s been stolen. He said the only three people who had the safe code were himself, Lily and you.’

  ‘Is he trying to frame me for stealing now?’

  Jonah hesitated, then decided he had nothing to lose. ‘He thinks Lily did it.’

  ‘Maybe he’s right.’

  ‘No way.’ His voice rose; he could feel himself losing control. ‘She’d never.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure.’

  But something in her voice made him pause. A coded warning, a sly poke in the ribs. You don’t know as much as you think you do.

  ‘Tell me something,’ Sandi said. ‘You went to Sibari, right? Were you there when the tablet got stolen?’

  Jonah nodded.

  ‘Was it a big deal? Police crawling everywhere, searching everyone’s rooms, that kind of thing?’

  ‘I didn’t see any police.’ In fact, now that he thought about it, Richard hadn’t mentioned it once that day. The whole dig team had sat down to dinner as normal that night, and no one had said a thing.

  Only three people on the dig knew the safe combination. Doctor Andrews himself, the conservator, and Lily.

  Sandi hadn’t been there. He was certain Lily couldn’t have done it. That left …

  ‘Did Richard take it?’

  A long pause. Sandi stared at her coffee. Jonah wanted to lift her off her seat and shake the truth out of her.

  ‘Am I right? Is that why he fired you?’ He took out Andreas’s card and started dialling the number.

  ‘Who are you calling?’

  ‘Richard’s still in Sibari. I need to alert the Eikasia people so they can get him.’ He fumbled over the numbers, his fingers jabbing the screen. Richard stole the tablet and made Lily disappear to cover it up. He took her phone and used it to send the bogus messages. That was how he knew about her mother, to make it plausible. He knocked my phone into the pool, so I couldn’t call England and find out it was a lie.

  Sandi put out her hand and laid it over the phone’s screen. ‘The problem with what you’re saying is, he didn’t fire Lily.’

  ‘He made her disappear.’

  She glanced over her shoulder. ‘You want to be careful saying things like that. Especially about people who have lots of money and scary lawyers. And it’s not like these guys are the Illuminati. If they wanted Lily off their case, they’d give her a plane ticket and a payoff and an NDA.’

  ‘She must have surprised him. He didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘You’re very confident about Lily.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You trust her.’

  He stared into her eyes. Anger throbbed through him – but didn’t make him completely deaf.

  ‘What are you saying?’

  Sandi turned the coffee spoon between her fingers, watching her reflection bow and distort in the bowl. ‘I trusted her too. I thought she was one of the good guys. Until she came back from Athens.’

  Reality check. He remembered the bank statement,
the trip to Athens Lily never mentioned.

  ‘What happened in Athens?’

  ‘Richard wanted me out. Lily went out to speak with the Eikasia Foundation guys who were funding the dig. She said she’d get them to change their mind. Instead, she brought one of them back to fire me.’

  Part of him was relieved to hear there was a simple reason for Lily’s trip to Athens. Part of him said if it was that simple, why hadn’t she told him about it?

  ‘She must have done her best.’

  Sandi dropped the spoon in her cup and fixed him with a look.

  ‘Don’t you get it? They were all in this together. All college friends, all in each other’s pockets. Once Adam got me out of the way, they could do what they wanted.’

  He must have heard wrong. The coffee shop was filling up; a group of students at the next table were all trying to out-shout each other. ‘Who?’

  ‘Adam, the program director. Weird, uptight guy. He was the one who fired me.’

  ‘Adam who?’

  ‘Adam Shaw.’ She saw the look on his face and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I guess you’ve met him too.’

  Seventeen

  Here is Timaeus, from Locris in Italy, a city which has fine laws, and who is himself in the first rank of his fellow-citizens; he has held the most important and honourable offices in his own state, and, I believe, has scaled the heights of all philosophy.

  Plato, Timaeus (20)

  Another city, another port. Locris occupied a sandy coastal strip beneath the high mountains which marched towards the sea. The sun was hotter here, the air thicker. The moment you stopped moving, swarms of flies descended. In that heat, I suppose they struggled to tell the living from the dead.

  The city was a blur. The block that fell from the yard only glanced me: they said that was lucky, though I didn’t feel lucky. I felt like one of those Homeric heroes who’d got on the wrong side of Achilles, my brains dashed out of my skull. The bandage on my head kept coming loose and flopping down over my face like a veil, though at least that protected my eyes from the dazzling sun. Bolts of pain shot through my skull every time I moved.

  I almost fell in the sea as I stumbled down the gangplank off the ship. Euphemus caught me. As we entered Locris through the massive walls, I began to understand why the flies flocked here. There were temples everywhere, altars sticky with blood. All Italians live in the shadow of the dark goddess: in Locris, she’s closer than ever. We passed two temples to Aphrodite, heavily decorated and thronged with women. Golden figures gleamed within, while white doves pecked corn off the precinct floor. The statues in the front flaunted all Aphrodite’s charms. I tried not to look, but couldn’t help myself – like some bursting adolescent staring at the porne down by the city gates. They made me think of …

  Agathon, I reminded myself, trying to get a grip on my delirious thoughts. I’d come for Agathon.

  There’s a man in Locris, a Pythagorean called Timaeus. Agathon had been trying to buy a book from him, but he wanted too much money.

  Diotima told me that, sitting in the ruins of Sybaris, silhouetted against the water. I remembered the curve of her breasts under her transparent gown at dinner, breasts like ivory, the nipples small and upturned and—

  Agathon.

  I knew the routine by now, as well as Sisyphus knew his boulder. Taras, Thurii, now Locris: go to the agora, ask for Agathon, draw a blank. Once I’d established no one knew him, I decided to look for Timaeus.

  If you still want the book, find me before the end of the month. I will be on the porch of the Great Temple.

  Our ship had cargo to unload – it wouldn’t sail until the next morning – so Euphemus offered to come with me. I clenched my teeth and willed him to go away, but he wanted to see the temple.

  ‘It’s the most famous temple in Italy. I’d hate to miss it.’

  I climbed the hill, wrapped in a cloud of pain and heat and despair. Flies nibbled the blood that had seeped through my bandage. By the time we’d come to the top of the town, I stank with sweat and the bandage was the only thing holding my skull together.

  The building was magnificent. It stood on a terrace on the edge of a ravine, a little way beyond the city walls. In spring, I could imagine torrents of meltwater foaming down off the mountains; now, the river was just a trickle among bone-white stones. Thick columns like tree-trunks supported a vast pediment. Caryatids, Persephone’s handmaidens, watched me with cold eyes as they held up the roof.

  The Guardians. Watching, all-knowing. My burned-out eyes made them sway on their pedestals. I imagined them stepping down, shrugging off their burden and letting the temple fall in on me. Their stony faces said they could do it without a flicker of guilt.

  Hushed voices murmured around me like flowing water as we stepped into the shade of the portico: whispered hymns, desperate prayers. Worshippers, mostly women, passed by, carrying their offerings into the sanctuary. Some came out crying, others beaming with joy. The air was sticky with blood and wine and pomegranate juice.

  I did a lap of the colonnade, trying not to trip over the stray women and dogs. I didn’t see anyone who fitted my picture of what a Pythagorean bookseller should look like, so I accosted a priest on his way into the temple and asked him if he knew Timaeus.

  He didn’t. But the name got a reaction: over the priest’s shoulder, I saw a slumped head suddenly jerk up. A filthy, hooded beggar, lying against the temple wall.

  I knelt down beside him. The fly that had been crawling up his arm buzzed away indignantly.

  ‘Do you know who Timaeus is?’

  I wished I stayed standing. He stank rotten. His fingernails were black, and he had strange growths coming off his feet. Even in the shade, he kept his hood so low it hid his eyes completely. The only detail I had of his face was the straggling orange beard that escaped the hood, too long and too thin. Behind the beard, his lips never stopped squirming, as if he had something horrible in his mouth he couldn’t get down and couldn’t get out.

  ‘Timaeus.’ He giggled as he said the name. ‘I knew Timaeus.’

  ‘Where is he?’ I looked at the crowds around us. ‘Can you point him out?’

  He extended a filthy finger, swinging it around like a drunk. I tried to see where he was pointing, until suddenly he reversed his hand and planted the finger on his own chest.

  ‘You’re Timaeus.’

  He didn’t deny it.

  ‘I’m looking for a friend. Agathon. He wanted to buy a book from you.’

  ‘Do you want the book?’

  ‘I want Agathon. Is he here?’

  The hooded face swivelled theatrically, first right, then all the way round in an arc.

  ‘Not here,’ I said impatiently. ‘I meant, in Locris.’

  His head dropped as if his neck had snapped. He stared at his feet.

  ‘Is that a no?’

  No answer.

  ‘But you know who I’m talking about. Was he here recently?’

  ‘There is no was or will be. Only is.’

  ‘Where did he go?’

  More silence. Then, as if someone had turned a key to unlock him, he suddenly spat out, ‘Down over the mountain. No escape, no escape that way. Nine years we kept that siege, against Ilium’s windy walls. And for what?’

  ‘Rhegion?’ guessed Euphemus. He’d kept his distance, standing well back from the beggar like something he didn’t want to step in.

  ‘Yes.’ Timaeus seized on it eagerly. ‘Yes, yes – Rhegion. He went to Rhegion.’

  ‘Why would he go there?’ Dimos had told me about Rhegion – the city on the tip of Italy that the tyrant Dionysius had spent two years trying to batter into submission. ‘Is it even possible to get in?’

  ‘In, yes. Out?’ A splenetic laugh that devolved into a wet fit of coughing. ‘Against that dreadful path, I hold you back. Stay away. Stay away. Nothing comes back that way.’

  ‘Then why did Agathon go there?’

  Timaeus held up his hands and stared a
t his palms, jerking his head from side to side in a crazy parody of reading.

  ‘For the book?’ I interpreted.

  ‘What was the book?’ Euphemus asked.

  He cupped his hands in a wide bowl. ‘The Krater. We called it The Krater.’

  ‘What’s in it?’

  Abruptly, he slapped his hands hard against his face. ‘Secrets.’

  ‘Pythagorean secrets?’

  ‘He wouldn’t pay the price.’

  Now we were getting to the heart of the matter. I held out my purse, right in front of his face so he couldn’t miss it.

  ‘I can pay.’

  He craned forward. From under his hood, I felt his gaze hook onto me.

  ‘How much do you think it is worth?’ he asked slyly.

  ‘Agathon said it was a hundred drachmas.’

  ‘More!’ he barked.

  I considered my finances. ‘I could go to a hundred and ten?’

  ‘No book’s worth that,’ Euphemus objected.

  ‘Only a fool thinks he knows the price of wisdom,’ Timaeus told him.

  ‘If you’re trying to say—’

  Timaeus’ hand moved for the purse. I snatched it back, then realised he was pushing it away anyway.

  ‘Knowledge is cheap,’ he sneered. ‘Cheap as dying. But not the book, not at any price.’

  ‘You won’t sell it?’

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ And then, making a leap: ‘You don’t have it. You sold it.’

  A hissing chuckle, like a kettle boiling, told me I’d got it right. ‘To Agathon?’

  More hissing – but no answer.

  ‘Who bought it?’

  He giggled. ‘A Lydian trickster, a sorcerer, with golden hair and perfumed locks, and the flush of wine on his face.’ A flash of anger and a sudden roaring voice. ‘I’ll cut off his head if I find him!’

  I tried to ignore the theatrics. ‘Did he have a name? Is he here in Locris?’

  ‘Told you. You guide yourself with blind eyes, deaf ears.’

  He was quoting Parmenides at me, I realised. If I’d been thinking more clearly, I might have asked how a raving beggar knew such esoteric philosophy. But my head hurt, and I was fed up with his half-truths and babbled nonsense. I wanted to look him in the eye. I reached forward and yanked back his hood.