Damian glanced in Oriel’s direction, as if to tell Mattias to watch what he said. ‘I’ve taken it to the mainland police,’ was all he revealed. ‘They’ll proceed with discretion.’
Mattias gave a brief nod, and nothing more was said. Oriel wondered for a moment what business they might have that could involve the police but she very soon forgot all about it because, at that moment, Damian stood up to signal that they were leaving. They were quiet in the car on the way back to Heliades, but it was an easy silence.
When they got back to the house, Oriel was both relieved and a little disappointed that Damian played the perfect gentleman, as he had the whole afternoon. The frisson between them was as strong as ever and, as they stood in the hallway, his smile lingered as he looked into her eyes.
‘A long day, eh?’
‘Yes, I think I’m ready for bed.’
His gaze sparked with a glitter of mischief. ‘An excellent idea.’
‘I meant—’
‘Of course you should go to bed, Calypso,’ he added with a wide grin, enjoying her flustered response. ‘You need your rest. Tomorrow we dive. You did well today, discovering the Sestius connection to the wreck. Who knows what we’ll find when we go down this time.’
Oriel visibly relaxed. ‘Yes, but remember, let’s not get our hopes up too soon.’
His silver eyes glittered. ‘But hope is not a dream, so they say, but a way of dreams becoming reality. Now, I’ve got some papers to look over before I go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning, Calypso. Sleep well.’
Oriel watched him as he sauntered off down the wing in the direction of his study, and let out a quiet sigh. He had such a masculine, confident way of walking that never failed to assault her sense of self-possession. Slowly, she made her way back to her room, eager for the softness of her bed.
But the moment Oriel set foot in her bathroom upstairs, the pleasant feeling of sleepiness that had assailed her limbs with such glorious lassitude was abruptly jolted from her as one hand froze on the open door. She gave a start, uttering a little cry. There, on the bathroom mirror, marked out in a greasy substance that she supposed must be soap, was an evil eye – another mati – exactly like the one that had been drawn in salt on her bedroom floor.
She took a shaky breath to steady her nerves and caught sight of her ashen face in the mirror. Her eyes were round pools of fear. Seeing herself like that – terrified and poised for flight – only managed to alarm her even more. Unlike before, instead of anger offering her a line of defence, she felt nothing but blind panic. It felt as though now she was tired and contented, her guard had been lowered and she was wholly unprepared for this latest attack by her unseen enemy. This time, however, she didn’t hesitate: all she could think of was flying to the sanctity of Damian’s protective arms.
She ran down the stairs and headed along the wing for his study. He was there, smoking at his desk, head bent over some papers in the orange glow of his lamp. When he raised his eyes, she saw some emotion flicker in their depths and then he pushed his chair back and rushed to her side.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ he asked quickly. ‘Your face looks as if you’ve seen a ghost! What’s happened, agápi mou?’
Oriel barely registered the endearment, fearful as she was, but she moved reflexively into the circle of his strong arms. ‘It’s on my bathroom mirror …’
‘What is?’
‘The mati …’
Damian’s jaw tightened and his hands gripped her shoulders harder. ‘Come, show me.’
He led the way upstairs to her apartment, letting Oriel open the door, still instinctively respecting her privacy. She led him to the bathroom and stood in the doorway: there was nothing – not even a smear – on the mirror.
‘It was there! Y-you must believe me …’ she stammered. ‘I’m not out of my mind!’
Damian was soothing now, asking questions gently but firmly. She confessed to there having been a similar instance, a salt mati, on the Saturday evening.
He muttered an oath. Then after a pause, he said: ‘This is Helena’s work.’ His eyes were unreadable but Oriel sensed a lowering of his spirits, a return of that almost habitual crease between his brows. For a moment she was taken over by fury at Helena, and the fear she had felt for herself melted away. Just to think! He had seemed so relaxed, so happy today – and now Helena had managed to spoil it all. Couldn’t she just let him be?
‘Why didn’t you tell me the other night when it happened?’ Damian asked eventually, his eyes studying her face.
‘It was that night you came to find me on your horse and we drank Metaxa on your terrace. When we … I couldn’t go back down to you. Not after …’ Her voice trailed away and for a moment both were silent.
‘Look, I’ll speak to her tomorrow,’ he said, gently. ‘It won’t happen again, I promise. You’re a guest in this house. I will see to it that Helena respects that.’
Oriel stared at him for a moment, thoughts clamouring in her head. One thing was for certain, she was right to think that life with Damian would be unsettling, impossible even. She turned to walk across her bedroom, through to the sitting room. Holding the apartment door open for him, all the while she yearned to have him stay the night and sleep beside her – to feel the sheltering comfort of his arms. But she said nothing.
As he left, Damian touched her arm, leaving a warm imprint on her skin that made Oriel almost weaken. ‘Try and get some sleep,’ he said. ‘We have a big day tomorrow, I want you to be fit for the dive.’
She nodded briefly and gave a washed-out smile, before bidding him goodnight.
* * *
The afternoon sky around Helios was a pure, uninterrupted blue that stretched seamlessly across Oriel’s field of vision. The sun was at full blast and the heat rained down on Damian and his crew like the breath of hell, sparkling off the water in a sort of dreamy haze. Summer was only just arriving and yet the Ionian Sea was like a semi-molten mirror. Around them the scorched cliffs and sand shimmered almost silver under the blinding glare.
They had spent the morning diving the wreck of the Roman argosy, Stavros patiently winching up basket after basket of earthenware pots and other artefacts. There was nothing on this trip to equal the excitement of Alexis finding the Alexander bronze but, little by little, they were starting to find their way around Marcus Sestius’s wreck and their knowledge was growing hour by hour. There had been no sign of anything that could be the remains of Helice underwater, and both Damian and Oriel tried to stifle their feelings of disappointment. After lunch, Damian suggested he and Oriel took a break to do some purely recreational diving.
‘You’ve done two thirty-metre dives and that’s enough for one day,’ he noted. ‘We can search again tomorrow, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. For now, let’s have some time in the shallower water of the reef. The islanders are very proud of it, for good reason. It’s totally unspoilt and there’s a magical quality to it. You’ll see.’
Stavros took up the anchor and headed north before bringing the boat towards shore once again. Ahead of them was a small island that consisted of two conical peaks joined by a saddle of treeless land. The earth had a look of redness, glowing in the reflected light of the sun. They entered a crescent-shaped bay enclosed by dark cliffs that rose at the edge of a stony beach, about twenty metres wide. Stavros weighed anchor at a spot in shallow water where corals growing from the gently shelving bottom gleamed right up to the surface, showing a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours. Beyond the rocks Oriel could see a lagoon, about four hundred metres end to end, she estimated, its shallowness causing it to glisten in green and yellow hues.
Damian and Oriel put on their fins and were overboard in no time. The visibility was good, so they began their dive with a slow descent, taking time to admire the myriad soft corals, fish and small creatures around them. There were large areas of plate coral, stacked in layers, interwoven with the more precious red coral. The huge rock formations gave the place a preh
istoric aura, redolent of the beginning of time. Shoals of bream passed by and large groupers emerged from behind rocks to greet them, a majestic sight with their bloated body mass and huge eyes.
As Damian and Oriel descended further, an octopus that was hiding in one of the small crevices ventured out to inspect them. Damian kept very close to her. He lit up his torch and pointed out a forest of gorgonian sea fans, a rare species in these waters, glowing red under his beam. Oriel had come across the colourful fan-shaped branches before, bent by the current at Secca del Papa, when she’d been on a dive in Sardinia. There was also a profusion of black-and-white spotted sea cows that were resting on a colourful blanket of sponges, their external lungs and small horns clearly visible as Damian shone his light towards them. Oriel laughed; she loved this weird and wonderful three-dimensional world under the waves. All of a sudden she felt free and light as a butterfly floating in an azure sky.
Now they were following a gentle slope of sand towards a dark, isolated expanse that proved to be a small platform marked by scattered posidonia, and she paused a moment to watch the delicate marine plants waving in the current, like wide blades of grass in the wind. Diving a little deeper still, they struggled against the current, which hampered their progress and, even though Oriel was fighting it as hard as she could, it seemed to be dragging her in a direction away from Damian. Deep inlets had been formed here by the vigorous agitation of the water and in some places she could see they had made lagoons in pockets of the reef.
A shoal of silver fish obscured Oriel’s vision for a moment and she lost sight of Damian completely. Suddenly a huge Mediterranean eel slithered out of a cavity in a rock, its spotted, elongated brown body swaying backwards and forwards as it wriggled straight towards her. She was transfixed like a mouse before a snake, her eyes locked on the open pharyngeal jaw, which would bite into its prey with the first set of teeth before using the second jaw to grab and swallow its victim. As she started to back away from the creature, it was still locked on to her and closing fast. She froze again. Her muscles were tensed, poised for flight but somehow unable to react.
Then she felt the clasp of Damian’s hand as he pulled her forcefully from the path of the eel. There was such strength in the adamantine grip of his fingers and, as she turned to him in relief, she took in the sheer power of his muscular frame, the breadth of his rock-like shoulders and, not for the first time, felt a sense of safety in his presence that she had never felt before with a man.
Damian used dive signals to ask if she needed to surface but she shook her head. Although a little shaken, she had recovered her self-confidence quickly, and she certainly didn’t want to be branded a wimp by him. Damian seemed happy by her decision and now didn’t let go of her hand. It was clear that he knew where he was going and Oriel felt secure in his care.
They swam along a wide crevice in the reef now, following the current in the wake of a school of golden fish whose movements caused intermittent flashes of light. Ahead of them was a natural archway at the edge of the reef, through which, Oriel knew, lay the deeper water beyond. She felt suspended for a moment, seeing the vacant blueness ahead, and a strange feeling came over her as her instincts became attuned to something. The archway felt almost mythological to her alert imagination, as if she and Damian were about to enter an ancient land of legend, where, if they passed through, nothing would ever be the same. They would find themselves moving through time, into another world altogether perhaps. Damian glanced at her and she read the question in his eyes, and together they continued swimming in the direction of the reef-edge. As they did so, part of her felt as if she were headed for a high precipice, destined to hurtle into nothingness.
As they passed through the archway into the deep and open water, Oriel’s eyes had to adjust to the change in perspective and light. They trod water for a moment, suspended upright in the lapis blue of the ocean, and then – as one – they saw it. Damian’s hand gripped hers hard. About a hundred feet away, the head of a great bronze statue loomed, encrusted with algae and lying on its side, one of its vacant eyes gazing fixedly upon them. Oriel gasped, her heart beating faster all of a sudden. She couldn’t tell if it was fear or excitement but she felt slightly giddy and a little sick, as if she had suddenly been transported to a mountain peak at high altitude. She knew by instinct exactly which of the gods was staring at her with his baleful and tyrannical gaze. He was colossal, each of the sculpted curls of his beard almost as big as Oriel herself. The creases of his tall, patriarchal forehead seemed to be frowning a ferocious message at her, rebuking her for having dared to enter a watery world that didn’t belong to her or her kind.
As if in a dream, Damian and Oriel swam, hand in hand, towards the gargantuan prone figure. The muscles of its torso seemed like a great range of hills to her as she passed wonderingly along its length. Damian pointed to the fist at the end of the massive, rope-veined, muscular forearm, clenched around a now broken trident, its three-tined head lying a few metres away on the seabed.
One thought and one thought alone passed through Oriel’s mind: the Poseidon of Helice. And although she later found all sorts of reasons why this colossus couldn’t possibly be that statue of legend, nonetheless she couldn’t rid herself of the idea, which had come into her head by a natural reflex, knowing this was what they had been hoping for against all the odds. She glanced up to see Damian treading water beside her and, even through his mask, she could see reflected in his eyes the same stunned awe and incredulity that was overwhelming her, as the two of them stared over what remained of the fallen mammoth sentinel of the deep.
* * *
Later that evening, as Oriel showered, she realized that her excitement about their discovery had barely died down in the preceding hours. Even Damian had found it hard to conceal his emotions, and his elation about the find had been almost tangible as they’d hauled themselves aboard the Ariadne.
‘This has to be proof that Helios is the site of the lost city of Helice,’ he’d murmured, keeping his voice low as the rest of the crew milled about on the other side of the caique. He looked feverish as he ripped off his mask, his grey irises glittering so brilliantly that if she didn’t know him, she would have sworn he was under the effect of some drug. ‘You were right, Oriel. None of the ships down there crashed on to the reef and were then blown into the lee of the island. They were moored there to start with, in the thriving port of Helice. We have to keep this from the others. For now, at least.’
Oriel unbuckled her air cylinder and shrugged off her diving gear. ‘I agree. This … this is unbelievable. This project is now of global significance and we need to shut down the site. We’ll need a licence to bring this up and so the site must be secured.’
Damian nodded. ‘No diving until I have all the right documentation and specialists assigned to the project.’
‘What will we tell the crew then?’
He slicked back his wet hair with his hand. ‘Leave that to me, I’ll think of something.’
They’d returned to shore as planned but had then holed themselves up in his study, poring over books and maps. Neither could get away from the idea that their statue was the legendary bronze of Helice, a thought that had occurred to each of them quite independently. In Oriel’s mind’s eye she could see the great statue standing proud, the sun glinting on the reddish metal, tall as an ancient redwood tree. It must have guarded the warlike Ionians faithfully at their harbour’s mouth, trident held aloft, glaring at every ship that dared to venture close … little realizing that it wouldn’t be the hand of man that brought about the port’s ruin but a great tidal wave, obliterating everything that stood in its path. She thought of the implacable and flint-like man beside her, he too standing proudly guarding his own island and its people, quick to defend or to flare up in fury if one of his islanders failed to do his bidding.
The electric energy between them had been magnified by the shared thrill of their monumental discovery and longing rippled through Oriel, coursi
ng down her body to her core. She was feeling his nearness in every fibre of her being and it was unsettling, almost maddening.
Finally they had noticed the time as the light through the tall windows deepened to sunset, an incandescent glow visible in all parts of the sky, drenching it with an aureate light. Damian had told her that tonight they would celebrate with champagne and that she should rest first; Hassan would come for her at nine-thirty. Oriel’s pulse had raced with anticipation, so caught up was she in the moment and Damian’s glittering gaze as it had fallen on her smiling lips.
And now there was the problem of deciding what to wear. She looked through her wardrobe with a critical eye, trying to anticipate Damian’s reaction to each dress. She was thankful for her usual extensive wardrobe, not knowing what to expect. From experience, she had learnt that Greeks, like most Mediterranean people, took great care and pride in their appearance and consequently didn’t hesitate to dress up, rather than down like the English, who branded that sort of behaviour vulgar. It was a trait that she loved, giving her the excuse to indulge her own love of clothes.
Eventually she chose a Malcolm Starr dress in fuchsia silk with a low V cut front and back, which revealed just enough skin to be sexy without being outrageous. Although Oriel had a beautiful figure, she had never had the stick look to which so many women of her generation aspired. Her soft rounded curves were in all the right places, with a bust and hips of roughly equal size and a narrow waist. The only jewel she wore was a hammered gold brooch representing the head of a horse, with an emerald eye that made it seem almost alive, designed by the sculptor Georges Braque and the well known goldsmith Baron Héger de Lowenfeld. A graduation gift from her parents after she’d been awarded a first in Classics, it was one of a few pieces of jewellery that Oriel held dear to her heart.
She pinned her hair back into a thick twisted knot at the nape of her neck, which brought into relief her high cheekbones and accentuated the depth of her green eyes. Rimmed with dark lashes that were in dramatic contrast to her pale hair, they shone like large peridots in her newly tanned face. No make-up was needed except for a small amount of tinted gloss on her lips. Oriel had just slipped into a pair of delicate fuchsia stiletto sandals when there was a knock at the door: nine-thirty on the dot. She flashed a last glance at the mirror before leaving the room.
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