by Tom Harper
“What is this?”
Grant offered her a cigarette, lit it and hooked his arm through hers. “I’ll explain in the car.”
“What car?”
Grant escorted her to the door, feeling the stares they attracted. The doorman opened it with a flourish and they were out on the hotel steps. In the driveway, under an ornamental palm, a long-snouted limousine gleamed black in the sodium light. Its engine throbbed hungrily.
“In we get.”
The car was a Mercedes. There was no one inside except the driver, who said nothing as he ushered them into the opulent interior and slammed the door. When Grant leaned back on the seat he felt a knot against his shoulders. He twisted round. A small hole, about the size of a .38 caliber bullet, had broken the leather and been inexpertly sewn up. Grant poked it with his finger. “Looks like somebody didn’t enjoy the ride.”
The car carried them on, up the empty road that ran along the seafront. Grant had supposed they’d be going to Athens, but the driver ignored all the turnings and continued straight on. Gradually, lights appeared in the night ahead, very high up. At first Grant thought they must be villages on a mountainside; then, feeling foolish, he realized the night had tricked him. They had arrived in Piraeus, the port of Athens, and the lights like strings of pearls in the sky traced the contours of cranes and looming hulls. Grant looked out of the window and stared through the barred gates and barbed-wire fences as they rushed past. It was like being whisked through a museum, each vessel an exhibit picked out in the floodlights. Some sat silent and ghostly; others hived with life as stevedores and longshoremen stripped them of their cargo like ants. A hand-painted banner, in Greek and English, hung limp against a freighter’s hull: USA feeds the patriotic people of Greece.
They turned off the main road and darted through a succession of backstreets and alleys, each tighter than the last, until the car stopped. Grant thought perhaps the Mercedes had taken a wrong turn and couldn’t get through, but in an instant the chauffeur had hopped out and was holding open the door. Grant just had time to glimpse boarded-up windows and political slogans daubed on the walls; then he was being ushered down a dank staircase. A metal gate protected the door—necessary, to judge from the dents and scratches in the wood. A battered sign above showed a figure draped in black standing in what looked like a canoe. Flickering neon letters beside it spelled out “Xαρον.”
“Charon,” Marina translated, though Grant could read it for himself. “The ferryman to the underworld.”
A world of smoke and music collided with Grant as he opened the door. The smoke was thick enough to kill him, a solid cloud that seized his lungs as if he’d been punched in the stomach. It didn’t drift or swirl; it just hung in the air under the cones of light cast by the low-hanging lamps. As well as the acrid bite of tobacco, Grant could taste a sweet undercurrent of hashish, and as he looked about him he saw bulbous water pipes on almost every table in the room. The patrons squeezed round them seemed to represent every conceivable stratum of Greek society: ladies in mink and pearls or in rouge and paste diamonds; men in evening dress, in overalls, in disarranged uniforms, in shirtsleeves and threadbare waistcoats all mingled around the nargiles, passing the coiled hose from one mouth to the next. No one gave Grant and Marina a second look.
On a low stage at the front of the room a five-piece band sat hunched over their instruments: a fiddler, a lute player, a man with a drum tucked under his arm and one with a flat dulcimer-like instrument resting on his knees like a cigarette tray. The only one who even seemed aware of the audience was the singer, a waif-like man in an open-necked black shirt, who stared at the microphone with deep, tubercular eyes. Grant couldn’t understand the words, but the song was fast and impossibly sad.
A waiter appeared at his elbow and guided him to the back of the room, where a row of round booths lined the wall. Most of them were crammed with as many people as could jam on to the leather banquettes, but one, near the end, was almost empty. There were only two men inside it: one thickset, bulging in all the wrong places; the other small and light, his gray hair slicked back severely and his moustache carefully trimmed. Though dwarfed by his companion, you could tell from his face and his bearing who obeyed whom. He gestured Grant and Marina to take a seat opposite.
“Mr. Grant.” He reached his right hand across the table; his left he kept out of sight, resting on his knee underneath. The skin was dry and waxy. “I am Elias Molho.”
CHAPTER 17
Elias Molho. Dealer in Rare Antiquities.” Smoke curled on Grant’s tongue as he said it. “I thought you were dead.”
The gray-haired man smiled and spread his hands. “I am . . . as you see me.”
“I heard the Nazis got you.”
Molho’s mouth twitched with displeasure. “Perhaps they did. Or perhaps it was convenient to me that people should think so. So many people vanished—even the Germans could not record them all. I chose to vanish on my own terms.” He reached in his trouser pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. Grant recognized it from the tailor’s shop, the one he’d written the hotel address on. “But now it seems you have been asking questions about me, Mr. Grant.”
Before he could speak the waiter appeared again. He set two tumblers of whiskey on the table in front of Grant and Marina, and left without presenting a bill.
“From America,” Molho said. “The first instalment of Truman’s aid program.”
Grant sipped his drink. He’d drunk enough cheap liquor, in underground bars from Cape Town to Moscow, to recognize the real thing when he tasted it. “Is this what you deal in? The black market?”
“Is there any other in Greece? All our markets are black now.” Molho’s face stayed still and courteous, but his eyes were hard. He nodded to the stage, where a full-breasted woman sheathed in a silver dress had taken over the microphone. “Do you know our Rembetika music, Mr. Grant? Before the war, it was a curiosity, music for addicts and thieves. The rembetes were a melancholy cult who thought that only their initiates understood the truth of misery. Now it is our national music.”
He swirled his drink in his glass. The big man beside him said nothing, but watched the singer and drummed his fingers on the table in time to the music.
“I’m looking for an artifact. A Minoan tablet.” Grant rushed out the words, almost stumbling over them. Everything since the phone had rung seemed like a dream and, as in a dream, he was frightened he would wake up before it finished. “Just before the war an English archaeologist came into your shop. He bought a clay tablet, or half of one, with writing on one side and a painting on the other. You remember the piece?”
Molho took a drag from his silver cigarette holder. “I sold many artifacts, before the Germans closed my shop.”
“Not many like this. It’s unique—or was, until you split it in two.” Grant looked Molho in the eye.
The Greek nodded. “Mr. Grant, I am a businessman. Whatever I am selling—American whiskey, Russian cigarettes, pieces of clay—I need to get the best price. What people want most, they pay most for. If my customers want ten cigarettes at a time rather than twenty, or a half-liter of whiskey, or two pieces of stone instead of one, I sell it. Of course there is a risk. Sometimes instead of twice as much profit, I make twice as much problem for myself.” Molho leaned back in the booth. “I must tell you, Mr. Grant, you are not the first man to come to me asking about a clay tablet. Soon after the occupation a German came to my shop. A Dr. Klaus Belzig.” His eyes narrowed. “I see you know the name?”
“Never met him. But you told him Pemberton bought the tablet.”
“Dr. Belzig was under the false impression that the tablet had been intact. I did not correct him; why should I? He asked me what happened to the tablet; I told him I sold it to a British archaeologist from Crete. I even showed him a copy of the receipt.”
“So Belzig went off to Crete. But Pemberton was already dead.”
“That was unfortunate for Dr. Belzig. And perhaps lucky for Mr. Pemberton. Dr. Belzig�
�s methods were . . . notorious.” Molho lifted his left arm from under the table. Marina gave a gasp of horror. A gold cufflink clasped the starched white shirt cuff—but there was no hand. Molho pulled up his sleeve a little to show off the grim stump, a rounded stub with scars like string round it.
Even Grant blanched. “Belzig did that?”
“I was only a Jew.” He gave a grim laugh. “He told me I was luckier than the man who stole the tablet from him. He took one hand—and I gave him one name. I knew Pemberton was English. I did not know he was dead, but I thought he would be out of Greece. Safe. Belzig would never learn I had only given him half the tablet, because he would never find any of it.”
“Christ.”
Molho pulled his sleeve back down. “Perhaps Belzig did me a favor. Before, we heard rumors among the Jews. There was an uncle in Germany, or a cousin had a girlfriend in Warsaw. But no one really believed—how could you believe such a thing? After Belzig, I saw what the Nazis could do. So I disappeared.”
Applause pattered round the smoky room as the singer finished her song. She left the stage and slid into one of the booths, sucking hungrily on the proffered pipe. Her place was taken by a man, slim and foppish. His black hair was slicked flat against his scalp and with his narrow moustache he looked almost like a Nazi. Grant wondered if it was supposed to be ironic.
The singer stood stiffly in front of the band. The bouzouki player began a fast lick, his fingers flying over the frets. Grant leaned forward. “And the second piece of the tablet? What happened to that?”
Molho held his gaze. “How much is that information worth to you? Will you take another hand?”
An electric howl cut through the room, silencing all chatter and gossip. Up on stage, the singer was clutching the microphone stand like a drowning man. His body contorted round it; you would hardly have believed such a slight man capable of such a sound. The howl trembled, then rose a pitch.
Grant’s face stayed perfectly still. “I’m only asking. But there are other men who want it. Men like Belzig. If they find you . . .”
Molho drained his drink. “Are you trying to intimidate me, Mr. Grant?”
“Just giving you fair warning.”
“I believe you. But—you understand—I am a businessman. If somebody comes into my shop and offers to buy something—maybe a clay tablet—for one hundred drachmas, I wonder if he will really pay two. Or if there is another man who will pay three. And what about you? I have not asked you why you want it—I am too polite. But I do not think you are an archaeologist, like Mr. Pemberton, or a collector. Are you a treasure hunter? I have heard from my sources that you are with two Englishmen and an American—as well as your lovely companion. I wonder, who are you working for?”
Grant gave a tight-lipped smile. “I sometimes wonder myself.”
“You cannot be frank with me, I understand. So I cannot be frank with you. You understand.” Molho smiled and stood. The heavy beside him stood too, just in case Grant had any ideas. “I will think about your request, Mr. Grant. Perhaps, when I have decided how much the information is worth, I will name my price. If so, I will contact you at your hotel.”
Grant leaned across the table, only to collide with the bodyguard’s fat palm shoving against his chest. “Don’t take too long. There are too many people after this thing. Dangerous men.”
Molho lifted his left arm and waved it at Grant and Marina, a chilling goodbye. “I know.”
The Mercedes sped them back to the hotel through empty streets. Grant and Marina sat in the back and said nothing. In the corridor outside their rooms, they paused. To anyone passing, they would have looked like two lovers returned from a late evening dancing. Grant had his jacket slung over his shoulder and his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbow; Marina had slipped off her shoes and clutched them in her hand, her feet more used to work boots than heels. Her face shone with sweat and a kohl tear smudged the corner of her eye. One of the straps of her dress had slid down over her shoulder.
“Goodnight,” said Grant. In the silent corridor, deadened by the hotel carpet, it sounded more abrupt than he’d meant it. “Unless . . .” He moved a step closer. Marina’s hair was thick with the spices of night and music: smoke and sweat, liquor and perfume. Perhaps all the hashish in the club had left him dazed. He lifted his hand and stroked the side of her face, pushing back the lock of hair that had fallen over her eye. She didn’t pull away. He let his hand slide down: over her cheek, her neck and on to her shoulder. Tenderly, he pulled the strap back up.
“I’ve got a bottle of brandy in my room.” He knew how false it sounded, but he needed the lie to cover him. It had been too long to take anything for granted.
“Just one drink,” said Marina. She sounded almost dazed, automatic. She let him take her arm and guide her to his door, nestling against his elbow as he fumbled for the key. He slid it into the lock—and stopped. Molho’s whiskey was warm inside him, Marina’s perfume almost overwhelming, but there were some instincts you never forgot.
She sensed him stiffen and tilted her head to look up at him. “What is it?”
“Shh.” Grant was staring at the door frame. A tiny corner of yellow paper peeked out from the crack between the locked door and the frame, almost invisible unless you knew to look for it. He always put it there when he left the room. But it wasn’t quite where he’d left it. They hadn’t just gone in; they—whoever they were—had also spotted the trap and tried to reset it. That meant they knew what they were doing. And the Webley was inside the room.
Grant pulled the key back out of the lock, keeping his hand on the door handle. Marina edged away, watching him in confusion. “Have you got your pistol?” he mouthed.
Without warning, the handle turned and the door flew inward. Still holding on to the handle, Grant was dragged forward into the room. He stumbled, caught his foot on something and sprawled forward on the floor. Someone came after him, but Grant was too quick. He rolled over and sprang up, took one step back and jabbed his opponent in the solar plexus. There was a groan and a muffled “Geez.”
Grant stopped his fist mid-swing and stepped back. The man in front of him was doubled over in pain, but there was no mistaking the tight crew-cut, the broad shoulders and the navy blazer. Further back, Muir was sitting on the end of the bed with a cigarette in his hand.
“Where the fuck have you been?”
CHAPTER 18
A stifling silence gripped the library. It was partially the weather, which after a week of April breezes had turned hot and sultry; partially the collective effect of more readers in the room. The Easter holiday was over, and the motley company of students, artists and academics who made up the British School’s clientele had begun to drift back. They perched on desks around the room, earnestly poring over books that looked almost as ancient as the civilizations they told of. Sitting by the window with a newspaper, Grant felt as out of place as he ever had, oppressed by the worthy purpose around him. That and Muir’s reaction the previous night.
“And that was all? He told you to go and you just went? Like a fucking puppy?”
Grant barely bothered to argue. “It was his home ground—and he had a gorilla next to him in case I tried something.”
“If you’d told us where you were going—instead of sloping off with the girl like some salesman in Bognor—we could have followed you. We’d know a damn sight more if you had.”
“There was no time. Molho arranged it that way. If you’d tried to follow us he’d probably just have dumped us.” He remembered the hole in the car seat. “Or worse.”
Muir jabbed his cigarette dangerously close to Grant’s face. “Right now, this little Yid is our only link to the rest of the tablet. Next time he calls, don’t you dare call your fucking girlfriend. You call me. Otherwise I’ll have you off this caper and back in a cell in some shitty corner of the Empire faster than fuck. Understand?”
Grant put down his paper and went over to Marina. Her pile of books had grown, though she s
till had some way to go before it matched Reed’s, opposite. He peered over her shoulder. “What are you working on?”
She leaned back so he could see—the curious book with its pasted-in patches of Greek. At the bottom, in a neat line of faded cursive script, someone had written what looked like a string of nonsense. “Paus.III:19:11; Strab.VII:3:19; Lyc. Alex:188; Arr.Per:21.”
“Is that a crossword clue?”
Marina sighed. “They’re references—places in the ancient texts where the White Island is mentioned. Pausanias wrote a guide to Greece, a sort of ancient Baedeker. Strabo was a first-century geographer. Lycophron wrote an almost indecipherable poem about the Trojan war and Arrian was a Roman functionary who wrote a description of the Black Sea to amuse the Emperor Hadrian.”
“Do they say anything useful?”
“They all say it’s somewhere in the Black Sea.” She put down her pen. “Apart from that, they can’t agree on anything. Pausanias and Lycophron say it’s by the mouth of the Danube; Arrian only says it’s somewhere in the open sea and Strabo puts it about five hundred stadia from the mouth of the Dniester.”
“How far’s that in real money?”
“About a hundred kilometers—but he doesn’t say in which direction.” She shuffled through her papers. “I also found a reference in Pliny—he claims the White Island is actually at the mouth of the Dnieper. You can’t really rely on the ancient geographers for measurements, but both the Danube and the Dnieper estuaries are actually approximately one hundred kilometers from the Dniester.”
Grant scratched his head. “So either it’s by the Danube, or the Dnieper, or it’s nowhere near either of them.” He glanced across the table to Reed, lost in a whirl of symbols and photostats. “I thought he said this island was just a legend—some sort of mythic paradise for heroes.”
“I think he was wrong. In all the references I’ve found, the only hero they ever mention is Achilles—or sometimes Patroclus, who was Achilles’ companion. The White Island wasn’t a generic paradise. It seems to have been specifically, uniquely, associated with Achilles.”