by Tom Harper
‘This was carved by someone. You can still see the chisel marks.’ She felt around the niche. ‘Perhaps there was a statue here.’
‘It’s a sacred place.’ Adam’s voice was distant, distracted. He was staring into the depths of the cave, where the walls tapered to darkness.
Jonah tried to imagine ancient hands patiently chipping away the wet rock, hour after hour in the sea-lit gloom. Time was fluid here. When something brushed his hand, for a wild moment he imagined it was a sea nymph, or the ancient carver returning with an offering for the goddess.
Fingers twined with his. He looked across and saw Lily floating at arm’s length, her hair slicked back, her face shining. In the instant his eyes met hers, something passed between them that left Jonah suddenly struggling for breath.
‘This is unbelievable,’ Adam called from further up the cave. ‘Open your mouths. Drink it.’
Still holding his hand, Lily let herself sink until the water reached her nose, then opened her mouth and let it flow in.
She bobbed up, gasping. ‘Try it.’
Jonah parted his lips, letting the water trickle over his tongue. It was cold and clear, just a faint hint of salt around the edges.
‘It’s fresh.’ Jonah glanced at the niche in the wall again, feeling the strangeness of the place beginning to bend reality. ‘But—’
‘It must be the mouth of an underground river,’ said Adam. He had his back to them, staring into the darkness. ‘I wonder how far back it goes.’
‘Don’t,’ said Lily.
‘I won’t go far.’
He dived forward and disappeared. The splashes of his strokes slowly receded into echoes. Lily and Jonah were left alone.
Afterwards, he couldn’t say whether she came to him, or he to her, or both to each other. All he remembered was the heavy magic of the cave pushing them together, the sparkling ripples and the drone of the waves and her body suddenly wrapped around his. Their lips touched. Her body was cold as the water, as good as naked, but all Jonah felt inside was a golden warmth turning him to light.
They’d stopped kicking to keep afloat. They sank, oblivious, until the water covered them, until they felt the sandy floor of the cave underfoot. Jonah pushed off. They broke the surface, gasping and laughing, staring at each other with wonder.
From the depths of the cave, they heard a fluttering sound which firmed into the rhythm of swimming. They pulled apart, though she kept her foot crooked around the back of his leg.
Adam came into the light, breathing hard. ‘It goes back for miles.’
He looked between them, suspicion chasing across his face. ‘Are you OK?’
Jonah couldn’t speak. All he wanted was to taste Lily again.
‘Should we come back with torches?’ Lily swept her hair back. ‘Explore?’
‘It’s better in the dark. Floating there, listening to it. You should come.’
Jonah took Lily’s hand. ‘We should get back.’
London
The next day was Sunday. Jonah spent it in the flat, staring at the phone and willing it to ring while he tapped out hopeless messages on his laptop. There were so many ways to contact people, and he tried them all. He e-mailed, he posted, he messaged – and those generated more e-mails, replies, questions, sympathy. But the only thing that mattered was answers – and there were none of those.
He logged into their bank account, looking for any transactions that might hint where Lily had gone. It hadn’t been touched since he took out money in Berlin to pay for petrol. He rang Sibari – three times to the hotel, twice to the lab. The lab was shut, their day off; the hotel answered, but the receptionist spoke no English. He left messages for Richard.
Speaking to the hotel reminded him again of the boat he’d seen. With the computer open in front of him, it occurred to him that there were probably people on the internet who obsessed about that sort of thing. A search for NESTIS YACHT quickly proved him right.
In a short while, he’d established that the yacht belonged to a Greek called Ari Maroussis, heir to a fortune courtesy of a company called Ophion Shipping. For a few minutes, it felt as though he was being flooded with information. Wikipedia articles, magazine profiles, the occasional news story about the company, speculation on succession. Ari’s father was rumoured to be in poor health, holed up in his villa on the Aegean island of Spetses. But even in the vastness of the World Wide Web, the flow soon dried up; he found himself rereading the same few facts. None of the boat spotters had reported any sightings of NESTIS in the last couple of months. And nothing suggested why Ari would have even known Lily existed.
What did it mean? Probably nothing. He shut the laptop and lay on the sofa. He didn’t read, didn’t eat, didn’t watch TV, didn’t even listen to the radio in case he missed the phone. He floated, waiting for a call or a key in the door that would make the world start again. He got her photo down from the bookshelf and stared at it until it blurred. Lily in the sun, her hat tipped back, red earth smudged on her cheek. Where are you? he asked the photo. But though it might be worth a thousand words, it only said the same thing over and over.
It was like all the come-downs after all the gigs he’d ever played – the greyness in the world, the emptiness inside – but a thousand times worse. So he managed it the way he always had, and poured another drink.
Monday morning he was back at the police station. The conference room was smaller than he’d expected – and still three-quarters empty. When you saw these things on the news, they always looked packed: flashguns, TV lights and questions firing nonstop at the desperate family. Here, there was one unattended video camera, and half a dozen journalists standing at the back cracking jokes. A trestle table with a microphone stood facing them, below the Metropolitan Police logo.
Ruth led him out through a side door. ‘We’ll wait a few minutes to see if anyone else shows up.’
‘I thought there’d be more,’ Jonah said.
‘You know how it is.’
She looked as though she was about to say something else, but bit it back. Jonah could guess. Lily’s case wasn’t juicy enough or bloody enough to attract the feeding frenzy. The ones who’d come today were just outriders, sniffing around on the off-chance.
Ruth ushered him into a waiting room. A potted plant, a water cooler, a few blue chairs – and Lily’s mother and sister sitting in a corner. Her mother wore a grey skirt and a pink cardigan, as if she’d taken a wrong turn on the way to church; her face looked small and grey. Julie was wearing a blue jersey dress that came down to her knees, revealing tanned legs and slim, firm arms. Her dark hair was pulled back in a functional ponytail. She looked so unlike Lily that lots of people, Jonah included, wondered if they’d had different fathers. He’d never asked. The father, whoever he was, had never been around to answer.
He leaned in and gave her mother an awkward hug. She was so thin he worried he might snap her. She hadn’t been the same since the fall two years ago: the light inside her had gone out. And now this.
‘You poor thing,’ she murmured.
‘It’s good of you to come.’
‘We came down this morning,’ Julie said. ‘You haven’t heard anything?’
He shook his head. ‘You?’
‘Nothing. I’d have thought she’d have called to check in on Mum. Even if you …’
She caught herself. Jonah felt his chest tighten.
‘We were fine.’
Her mother looked up. ‘She’ll come back. Or at least let us know.’
‘That reminds me,’ said Julie. ‘There’s something—’
She broke off. Ruth had popped her head in. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
She led them back into the conference room. Jonah didn’t count any more reporters than before. A couple of the photographers held up their cameras for pictures; the rest just looked bored. Jonah felt the anger rising inside him and tried to force it back. It only increased the pressure.
They took their seats and Ruth leaned i
n to the microphone. ‘Thanks for coming. As you know, Lily Barnes went missing in Italy on Friday. Her husband is going to read a short statement, and then we’ll take questions.’
She turned the microphone towards Jonah. He took the creased paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, squinting at the words. It was the hardest thing he’d ever written, and he dreaded having to read it out. Most nights, for the past six weeks, he’d performed in front of hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people. These were half a dozen bored journalists in a shabby police station. But there was no song that would make these words sound right. He was telling the world that Lily was gone. Making it public was like opening a door, letting out all the terrible possibilities he’d bottled up inside himself and giving them life.
‘My wife Lily …’
‘Could you speak up, please?’ called one of the journalists.
The room was too hot; his mouth was dry. He cleared his throat and took a drink from the glass of water in front of him. ‘Sorry.’ He just wanted this to be over. ‘My wife Lily …’
He paused. A uniformed officer had come through the side door and was whispering something in Ruth’s ear. Ruth nodded, and put a hand over Jonah’s microphone.
‘Hold on a sec.’
They went out into the corridor. Jonah watched them through the window in the door but couldn’t hear a thing. In front of him, the journalists had started to look interested. One took out his notepad and started scribbling, glancing up every few seconds at Jonah. Was he writing about him? Jonah felt another rush of anger. This was supposed to be about Lily.
The door opened. Ruth came in but didn’t sit down.
‘I’m afraid this conference is cancelled,’ she announced.
The journalists started to grumble, but Ruth stared them down with the sort of look they probably taught in the first week of police school. Jonah just gazed at her, echoing the question that several of the reporters had shot back.
‘Why?’
Ruth half turned towards Jonah and Lily’s family. ‘They’ve found her.’ And then, seeing the journalists’ noses twitch, added, ‘She’s fine.’
Ruth took them back into the waiting room, leaving the journalists to pack up. A couple shot Jonah looks as he went out, as if they blamed him for spoiling their fun. He didn’t care. He balled up the statement and threw it in the bin, dizzy with the relief flooding his system.
But there was so much he needed to know. ‘Where is she? Is she OK?’
‘She’s well,’ Ruth said.
‘How did they find her?’ Julie asked.
‘The Italian police spoke to her on her mobile. I don’t have details yet – they just rang through. They’ll send a full report later. But she’s fine.’
‘They spoke to her on her mobile?’ He must have rung it a hundred times in the last three days and it had never been switched on. The relief suddenly wasn’t flowing quite as hard as it had.
‘When’s she coming back?’ said Lily’s mother.
‘I don’t know.’ Ruth smiled – but behind her brisk manner, there was something evasive. Something she was keeping from him.
‘Where is she?’ Jonah said again.
Ruth squared her shoulders, bracing herself. She looked Jonah dead in the eye.
‘She asked them to keep that confidential.’
Jonah went cold. This couldn’t be right.
‘She told the police she’s sorry about worrying you all with the story about her mother, and causing all this fuss. She didn’t know what to say. She needed some time to herself.’
‘Can I speak to her?’
‘I don’t know what happened between her and yourself, but that’s between you two. This isn’t a matter for the police any more.’
She was moving, shepherding them down the corridor towards the front door. Jonah wanted to stand his ground, to stay there until he got answers, but he had to follow her to be heard.
‘How did they know it was Lily? It could have been anyone using her phone. Did they actually go and see her? Did they trace her phone?’
‘It’ll all be in the report,’ said Ruth. Too late, he realised she’d managed to get him through the big double doors into the reception area.
Something like pity creased her face. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way.’
Find out? Everyone was acting as if something had been settled, but in Jonah’s world there were only more questions. Why couldn’t they see it? Why weren’t they as desperate to know as he was?
Julie took his arm and pulled him out onto the street. Her mother was already down there, leaning on the metal rail that separated her from the traffic crawling down towards the gyratory.
‘Did you have a fight?’ Julie asked.
‘I didn’t even see her.’ He tried to play back every conversation, every message and e-mail they’d exchanged in the last six weeks. ‘We didn’t argue about anything. We just wanted to be back together.’
He could see she didn’t believe him. ‘Everyone argues – just ask my Rob. She’ll come round.’
‘There was nothing,’ he insisted.
‘Go home and get some rest. And don’t call unless you’ve got good news. You’ve worried Mum enough.’
She left him standing on the steps as she headed for the taxi rank outside the shopping centre. A moment later, she looked back and fumbled in her bag. ‘I almost forgot. This arrived this morning.’
She came back and gave him a white cardboard envelope covered in courier’s stickers. Jonah’s heart jolted as he saw the address on the front: Lily’s writing, sent to Julie.
The date on the sticker was Friday. She must have sent it just before she disappeared. Hand trembling, he slid out two pieces of paper. The top sheet had a brief note: Can you look after this until I get back? Underneath, the second sheet was covered in writing: strange, angular letters that looked like a child’s. It took Jonah a moment to realise it wasn’t English, another moment to realise it wasn’t even the normal alphabet. Greek, maybe?
‘I suppose it’s something to do with her work,’ said Julie. ‘You keep it. She might want it when she comes back.’
If she comes back. He tried not to think it, but the cruel voice inside him slipped through his defences.
He checked his phone but there were no messages. He tried Lily’s mobile again, but it was switched off. Of course. At the bottom of the hill, traffic crawled in circles around the Wandsworth gyratory. Jonah watched them go round and wondered if that would be the rest of his life.
Unless … He looked at the paper Julie had given him again – dead words in a dead language – and wondered if they could bring Lily back.
Eleven
My first impressions of Italy disgusted me. I despised the sort of life which they called the life of happiness, stuffed full with the banquets of the Italian Greeks and Syracusans, who ate to bursting twice a day, and never went to bed alone.
Plato, Letter VII
‘Actually, I can answer your question perfectly well.’ Dimos dunked his bread in wine, then sucked until there was nothing left but the crust. ‘Is Dionysius a good thing for Syracuse? Absolutely. The city needs a strong hand, or Sicily will be overrun by Carthaginians.’
His own strong hand reached for a peach, squeezing so hard the skin split. Nectar oozed between his fingers.
‘But Dionysius has forgotten who he’s supposed to be fighting. He’s like a man who picks his wife, only to discover that he prefers her sister, and then the sister’s cousin, and then the cousin’s son …’ He made a gesture with his dripping fingers. ‘He’s insatiable.’
‘Show me a tyrant who isn’t,’ I muttered through my breakfast.
‘Has Dionysius invaded the mainland?’ Euphemus asked.
‘Two years ago we formed a coalition, Thurii and the other cities, to resist him. It was a disaster. We fought two battles, and both times he routed us. Total embarrassment. And Dionysius behaved impeccably. He let our men retreat in good order, ransomed the prisoner
s and offered peace with dignity. That’s the mark of greatness.’
He sounded almost proud, as if by going down to defeat they’d somehow earned a share of the glory. I’ve never fought on a battlefield, but I saw the corpses stacked in the agora when my uncle and his friends took charge. Dead eyes, denied any future. The mark of greatness.
Dimos was still talking. ‘There are plenty of sensible men who think we could do with a dose of strong leadership here in Thurii.’
Euphemus fastidiously peeled his own peach. ‘A homegrown tyrant? Or would you invite in Dionysius himself?’
‘There’s no denying we’d benefit from a leader who could do the right thing. Not just talking around everything in the Assembly all day, getting nowhere.’
I was in a disagreeable mood. My stepbrother has that effect on me – plus I had a runny nose from the storm the day before, and I’d slept badly.
‘Do you think a tyrant always does the right thing?’
It was the first thing I’d said that he’d noticed. The question surprised him. ‘Some do, some don’t. I’m saying, at least they have the freedom to do the right thing.’
‘Tyrants aren’t free.’
‘They do whatever they please.’
‘They’re slaves to their appetites.’
‘But they have the power to satisfy them.’ Euphemus spoke lightly, trying to take the heat out of the conversation.
‘Any immoderate desire is tyrannical,’ I persisted. ‘You’re a slave to it. Lust, for example.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Or gluttony.’
‘Yes.’
‘And every drunkard turns into a tyrant.’
Dimos smiled. For most people, a smile shows their face at its best. With Dimos, it was an ugly thing.
‘If that’s true, we’ll all be tyrants tonight.’
I didn’t understand.
‘I’m throwing a dinner party.’
I spent the day wandering around Thurii, asking about Agathon. Thurii’s a modern town, like the Piraeus, with straight streets and paint still fresh on the temples. You could almost believe there’s no history at all – until you remember the drowned Sybarites slowly mouldering under its foundations.
