A Terrible Beauty (22 page)

“Yes, but he liked neither the hours nor the pay,” Philip said, shocked at how easily the lie came. “I doubt he will return.”

 

15

I choked back bile as we stood around the fallen man, who Milos told us was called Alastor Kallas. He had been married only two years and his wife had given birth to a baby boy less than a month ago. Margaret had retreated behind some nearby scruffy plants to be sick. Colin crouched next to the body, examining it carefully.

“Did any of you hear another shot?” he asked.

“No,” Milos said. “If we had, we would have come here without delay. If we had arrived more quickly…”

Colin turned Mr. Kallas gently onto his side so that he could better see the fatal wound. “I am afraid it would have made no difference. The back of his skull has been crushed—Emily, do please look away; you will not want to see this—and he must have died almost at once after receiving the blow.”

I took my husband's instruction in the spirit in which he gave it. I had remained composed at enough scenes of grisly death to feel no further need to prove my mettle, but as I stood, my back to the others, I feared I would be sick. I closed my eyes for a moment and then opened them and stepped further away from the cloying metallic smell of blood, searching for clues on the road in front of me.

“Colin,” I called. “I may have found the murder weapon.” He and Milos were at my side at once. Vasilis, tears streaming down his face, remained next to his murdered friend. I pointed to a large rock on the ground, off the side of the road, nearly against the hill. The surface bore the evidence of its use. My stomach churned.

“Emily, you and Margaret must take Vasilis back to the village. Someone needs to speak to Kallas's wife—”

Vasilis interrupted. “I will not leave him.”

“I will go with you, madam,” Milos said. Margaret, the pallor of death coloring her face, walked back toward us, but stopped well before she reached the body and stood trembling in the middle of the road. Colin went to her, scooped her off her feet, and carried her to her horse, which she somehow managed, with his help, to mount. Milos took the reins attached to his donkey in one hand and held on to the bridle of her horse with the other, walking between the two animals so Margaret need not do anything more than remain upright. I followed behind, Pyrois skittish, as if he sensed something was wrong.

Back in the village, the men were still beneath the olive tree. Milos said nothing to them as a group, but pulled one of them aside, and spoke to him in low tones. The man's grizzled face crumpled at the news. Alastor Kallas was his son. As the others comforted him, Milos went in search not of Alastor's wife, but of her mother, whom he felt should tell the new widow what had happened. I offered to accompany him, but he refused my offer. Graciously and with thanks, he explained it would be easier for her to hear without a stranger present.

Margaret had slid off her horse and was now leaning against the side of a building away from the men. I went to her, passed her my canteen, and forced her to take a drink.

“The water is bound to be hot and awful, but it will do you good,” I said.

“I did not think I would react this way,” she said. “I am so very sorry, and thoroughly mortified.”

“You ought not be,” I said. “It was a hideous scene. No one should have to observe such a thing.”

“You are stronger than I realized. How many times have you faced this? And yet you manage to go on and do whatever is necessary, regardless of a churning stomach.”

“No more talk like that,” I said. A high-pitched wail came from inside one of the houses, and we knew Milos and the girl's mother had given her the awful news. “We will need the police, but I don't know if there are any on the island. Dr. Liakos may be able to help us. Why don't you and I return to the house and send Jeremy or Fritz to fetch him?”

“We should wait for Colin,” she said.

“He is perfectly capable of handling things here,” I said. “Go back to your horse. I will be along presently, as soon as I have explained to Milos what we are doing. He will tell Colin.”

*   *   *

Margaret remained silent the entire way back to the villa, and when we entered the house, she retired to her room without so much as acknowledging the gentlemen, all three of whom were on the roof terrace and had called down greetings to us. I followed her and knocked on her door, but she begged me to leave her be, so I sent Mrs. Katevatis up to her, on the pretense of drawing her bath, and stayed in the corridor outside her room until I could hear the two of them talking. Mrs. Katevatis had nearly mystical powers when it came to comforting others, and I was glad Margaret had seemed to succumb to them.

Knowing my friend to be in capable hands, I climbed the stairs to the roof, where the gentlemen leapt to their feet upon seeing me. Philip, his arm bandaged and in a sling, had regained his color. I told them to all sit back down, and scolded Philip for having got out of bed—he ought to have been resting—and then described for them the events of the day. Upon hearing of Mr. Kallas's death, Fritz choked back a sob and Philip turned a sickly shade of gray. Jeremy immediately expressed concern over the man's death, but then inquired after Margaret.

“She saw the body?” he asked.

“She did. You know the effect such a thing can have—”

“Indeed I do,” he said. Some years earlier, Jeremy had accompanied me on a walk through Hyde Park, during which we stumbled upon a similarly grisly scene. It had taken a great deal of whisky to get him—and me—through the aftermath. “Should I go to her?”

“She refused to let me in,” I said. “Mrs. Katevatis is with her now.”

“We need to return to Kamari immediately,” Philip said, rising. “We cannot let our men think we have no concern for their well-being.”

“Sit back down at once,” I said, ignoring the shock on his face. “They do not need anything from you right now, particularly as your presence is what appears to have lured this miscreant to the area. Would you have him stalk you again, and perhaps miss and hit one of the villagers instead? Do they need another death in their community?” The harshness of my words took me by surprise.

“Hargreaves is with them,” Jeremy said. “He will have told them you have not abandoned them, but are staying here for the safety of everyone.”

“I will go tomorrow,” Fritz said. “Today it is best that we leave them undisturbed to mourn.”

“An excellent idea,” I said. “In the meantime, it would be helpful if you, Philip, told us everything you can about what precisely you think is going on.” I looked directly into his eyes and held his gaze.

“I have already told you everything I can,” he said. “That is, everything I know. I am as much in the dark as the rest of you. This Demir believes I have something of his and he has become increasingly violent.”

“Perhaps it is time to find something to give to him,” I snapped. “Unless you are content to let his henchmen terrorize innocent people?”

“It is not fair of you to be angry with me,” he said, his tone scolding. “You do not know everything—”

“You just said I know everything you do.” I stopped myself from stamping my foot. “I am going to freshen up. You, Philip, should retire to your room at once to rest so your injuries heal more quickly.”

“I am quite fine here, I assure you.”

He answered me sharply, responding precisely as I'd thought he would. His rebuke told me he did not like his former wife—or, more likely, any lady—speaking to him with such candor and force, and I'd suspected he would refuse to follow what he viewed as an order from me. Pleased that I had managed him so neatly, I went back down the stairs, but paused at the bottom before going any further. Once the gentlemen had started talking again, and it became clear Philip was involved in the conversation, I felt confident he would not come down in the immediate future.

I crossed the corridor and headed directly for the Etruscan room, closing the door and locking it behind me. On the wall above the bed I had caused to be painted, by an extremely skilled artist, a fresco in the Etruscan style, depicting three musicians with their instruments against a background filled with trees, birds, and other decoration. A niche on the wall opposite the door contained a spectacular amphora from the sixth century B.C. that was still in possession of its pointed lid, covered with geometric patterns. Mermen frolicked along the top of one of the sides, dogs on the other, and below, the artist had painted a wide variety of waterfowl.

I looked around the room, not sure where to begin, feeling not even the slightest guilt at what I was about to do. Philip had brought nothing with him from the camp other than the clothes he was wearing and a small bag he had hung across his chest. I remembered seeing it after he had fallen from his donkey, and now I found it on a bedside table. Without any hesitation, I opened the buckle and looked inside.

The contents—a notebook, a pencil, a penknife, a spyglass, a revolver, and a box of bullets—disappointed me. I opened the notebook, expecting to see the handwriting so familiar to me after having read his journals, but instead found only sketches of Ancient Thera. He was an excellent draftsman, the drawings clear, detailed, and accurate, but the pages contained nothing to indicate why he was being targeted. According to his story, the Achilles bronze fueled all of the current violence, but I found it hard to believe anyone would focus this many years on what seemed nothing more than a futile chase. Surely this Demir person would realize he would be better off spending his time harassing someone in possession of something he had a chance of actually acquiring.

I felt along the bottom and sides of the bag and realized I had missed one of the inside pockets. In it, I found a small statue, bronze, of the god Hermes. I thrilled at the discovery, until, upon closer inspection, it became clear the piece was a modern copy, and not a particularly good one. I returned it to the bag.

I would never be convinced the storm had mangled Philip's tent the night of Herr Bohn's death. The destruction was deliberate and with specific purpose. If Demir's lackeys had not found the bronze there or on Philip's person during one of their numerous attacks on him, why would Demir continue to waste resources pursuing it after all this time? No rational man would continue the pursuit, unless he had a solid reason to believe Philip did, indeed, have the object.

I searched the rest of the room, even under the mattress, but found nothing further. Undaunted, I went down through the kitchen and into the courtyard, where, as I has suspected, Philip's clothes, along with Fritz's, had already been washed, and were hanging on the line to dry. I glanced up at the roof, but saw no sign of the gentlemen watching me from above, and then checked the pockets in each pair of trousers and both jackets, as well as Fritz's shirt. Philip's, too damaged to merit repair, was nowhere to be found. Satisfied that the pockets were all empty, I went in search of the maid, who told me Mrs. Katevatis had burned Philip's shirt, its bloodstains having rendered it unusable even as a rag. The jacket, she said, could be saved.

Frustrated, I returned to the clothesline and felt through the pockets again, focusing on the myriad number of them in the jackets, before turning my attention to the seams of the garments. The trousers revealed nothing of import, but on the inside of one of the khaki jackets—the one I recognized to be Philip's—I spotted a small repair in the lining, beneath which lay something hard and inflexible, no more than six inches long. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the first sharp object I saw, a paring knife, and used it to rip open the stitches. I could hear the blood pulsing through my veins as I reached inside with a single finger, and felt the cool touch of metal. Continuing with great care—I anticipated what I had found—I pulled open the lining so I could gently remove the object. I trembled as I touched it and placed it on my open palm, holding it up in the sunlight, the inscription confirming my suspicions:

ΑΧΙΛΛΕΥΣ ΑΝΕΘΕΚΕΝ ΤΟΙ ΔΙ
.

Akhilleus dedicated to Zeus.

 

Philip

Ephesus, 1895

This last visit from Hakan caused Philip ongoing distress. He could no longer sleep. Every sound in the camp, every voice in the distance startled him. Reiner commented he was not looking well and worried his friend would fall ill, but Philip assured him it was nothing a little rest would not cure, and he asked Humann to allow him some leave to recuperate, saying he would go into town, consult a physician, and stay for a few days. Obviously, he had no intention of doing any of this, but he needed an excuse to leave the site in search of something to satisfy Demir. He did not have enough time to go far, but he covered as much ground as he could on horseback, combing village after village and buying whatever antiquities he could find from the locals.

His spoils lacked the panache he believed would be necessary to impress Demir. He had two small but adequately decorated red figure pots, a badly damaged sculpture a foot and a half high that might have been Artemis, a handful of prehistoric spearheads, and a tiny but lovely bronze of Hephaestus. No one would believe any of them, except perhaps the last, worthy of stealing, but he hoped that, if presented in the right way, they might convince Demir that he was at least trying to do what the man wanted. After all, Philip could not guarantee the Turk he would ever uncover something spectacular enough to tempt the man's clients. Archaeology was not predictable. One might work for years without finding something the outside world would consider exciting, as John Turtle Wood had learned the hard way. Demir would have to content himself with whatever Philip presented him.

The difficulty, of course, would come if something truly extraordinary did turn up in the course of their excavations. Demir would get word of it, and Philip hated to think what might happen then. He might be able to pocket a few coins, or even a small statue, but the mere thought of doing so troubled him, and objects of that sort surely would not be enough to satisfy Demir anyway. Philip had already stolen once and had no intention of ever doing it again.