Levkas Man (24 page)

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I did one voyage through the Panama Canal and up to S.F.'

He nodded, pleased. ‘A good place. But plenty tough. I guess Port Vathy is quieter, eh?' He was smiling, his blue eyes staring at me very directly. Either he came of pure Greek stock or there was a touch of the Viking in his ancestry.

He was not the official headman, but his American background, particularly his police experience, set him apart from the rest of the inhabitants of the small island community. The police chief at Levkas was a personal friend of his—he mentioned this quite early on in the conversation, thus establishing his unique position. I got the impression that he and the Pappas virtually ran the place. Certainly the Customs official treated them both with deference.

Nobody had ordered coffee, but it came and I think it was on the house. I offered him a cigarette. ‘English, eh, I guess we don't see many English cigarettes here in Port Vathy.' He took one. So did the priest and I left the packet on the table. ‘Now, what's on your mind, fella?' He was suddenly a San Franciscan cop again, watching me closely as he lit his cigarette and began sipping noisily at his coffee. ‘This guy—' he indicated the Customs officer—‘says your name's Van der Voort and you're in'erested in a man named Holerod who arrived yesterday.'

Holroyd had come in by caique at four-thirty in the afternoon, had left the other two members of his party to set up camp on the waste ground at the head of the inlet and had walked alone to Vatahori. He had got back to Port Vathy a little after nine and had then arranged with Vassilios, a local fisherman, to take them round to the west side of the island in the morning. ‘Now, you tell me something.' His gaze fastened on Bert. ‘Two days ago you slip a man ashore at Port Atheni without informing the Customs officer. Why?'

Bert was too astonished to say anything and Zavelas smiled, his eyes cold. ‘You think we don't know what goes on in our own island?'

‘I didn't think it mattered,' Bert said. ‘He'd been here before—'

‘Okay. No need to explain. We know all about Dr Van der Voort.' He turned to me. ‘And you're his son. That right?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘How did you know?'

‘I have told you, Kapetán Constantinidi is an old buddy of mine. He is Chief of Police in Levkas.' And he added, ‘You know Demetrios Kotiadis? Then I do not need to explain. We have been expecting you.' His blue eyes were staring at me. ‘You wanna talk to the Doctor first or this Professor Holerod?'

‘Holroyd,' I said.

He nodded, smiling. ‘Like some more cawfee? No? Okay then, we go.' And he got to his feet.

Five minutes later we were chugging out of the inlet in the little boat he kept for fishing. ‘The cave is in the Meganisi Channel facing Levkas. The Doctor took me there once, but there ain't nothing to see—just rocks and a big square hole in the ground he dug himself.' He was leaning forward his head close to mine so that he could talk above the noise of the engine. ‘He was camped there all on his own for about a month last year. Pappadimas took supplies out to him from Vatahori.'

‘Why not from Vathy?' I asked. ‘Or Port Spiglia? That's even nearer.' Vatahori was at the north-east corner of the island.

‘I guess because the Doctor and Pappadimas are old friends. When he first came to the island—that was before I got back from the States—he made Vatahori his base and hired Pappadimas and his boat to explore the whole of Meganisi. also some of the little islands like Kithro and Arkudi parts of Levkas, too. I figured he must have been some sort of geologist But then last winter Pappadimas showed me the collection of flints and bone fossils he'd left with him. Brought out a whole box full last year, and when he got cheesed off with digging around in that cave, he'd stay a few days with Pappadimas and his family, sitting for hours over that box of relics, making notes.' We had turned the corner of the inlet now and he was steering close in to the rocks. ‘If he didn't have Doctor in front of his name, reckon I'd say he was a nut-case. But then I ain't had any sort of an education and all the long words he used—it was Greek to me.' And he laughed.

We were already opening up the entrance to Port Spiglia It was a wild little inlet with the village of Spartokori perched high above a sheer rock cliff. The first cat's paws of the day breeze were just beginning to mark the flat surface of the water as we turned south into the Meganisi Channel. It was a narrow gut with a ridge of the Levkas mountains towering above us to starboard and a small island dead ahead, close in to the Meganisi side. ‘That's Tiglia,' Zavelas said. ‘The cave is just back of the shallows. And over there—' He pointed to the Levkas shore. ‘You see that bay? It's called Dessimo. The Doctor was over there for a time last year.'

Inside of Tiglia Island the sea was a bright emerald green—shallows and a sand bottom. And as we opened the cove, we could see a boat drawn up close in to the rocks, the expedition's mess tent a bright splash of blue. Zavelas leaned towards me again. ‘First thing the Doctor did when your friend landed him at Vatahori was to get Pappadimas to bring him out here.'

‘Did he leave him here?'

‘No. They went back to Vathori that night.'

‘And yesterday?'

‘Yesterday the Doctor is at Pappadimas's house. He is in Vatahori all day. But that don't mean he's still there today.'

He steered the boat into the shallows where the water was like crystal, the sand bottom very clear, and then he cut the engine. A short dark man wearing an old pair of khaki shorts, tufts of black hair showing above a dirty vest, waded out and caught our bows, drawing us in beside the other boat. ‘This guy is Vassilios.' The fisherman nodded and smiled, a flash of even white teeth in a brown stubbled face. They talked for a moment and then Zavelas said, ‘It's okay. The Doctor's not here. You wanna go up to the cave?'

The little beach was littered with gear, no sign of Holroyd and the others, and only the one tent pitched. ‘Where is it?' I asked.

‘Up there.' He pointed to a pinnacle of rock away to the right. ‘Vassilios will show you.'

Bert stayed in the boat with Zavelas and I went up alone, following the fisherman. There was a faint track, and behind the pinnacle of rock, we came out on to a sloping platform looking south down the channel. There was an overhang here, and in the recess below it, a pit had been dug about two feet down at the outer end, but much deeper at the back. All three of them were there on their hands and knees scrabbling at the earth where rain had collapsed the edges of the dig, sifting the dry soil through their fingers. ‘Here's another one,' Cartwright said. And the others peered over his shoulder as he rubbed the dirt from a shaped piece of stone. ‘That's Solutrean surely?' He passed it to Holroyd who nodded. ‘Definitely. Look at that willow-leaf point.'

They were so engrossed they didn't realize I was standing there, watching them. ‘It's a pity we don't know the exact level from which it came,' Cartwright said.

Holroyd laid the piece of stone carefully down with several others on the edge of the pit. They were all sharp slivers of a very dark colour, almost black. ‘The levels are probably disturbed anyway. We'll know more when we start to dig at the back. But it definitely has possibilities.' His tone was eager. ‘Look at this arrow-head.' He had picked up one of the smaller slivers. ‘Obsidian. And very advanced work—typical late palæolithic' He held it in his hands, peering at it, fondling it almost. ‘Beautiful! Beautiful work.'

Vassilios moved, dislodging a stone, and Holroyd looked up, saw me and scrambled to his feet. ‘How did you get here?'

‘Boat,' I said.

He nodded, waiting, Cartwright and Hans Winters, still on their hands and knees, staring up at me. ‘Has Dr Van der Voort given you permission to examine his dig?' I asked him.

He stepped out of the pit and stood facing me. ‘To begin with, young man, I don't need his permission. I have authority from the General Direction of Antiquities to examine any cave-shelter in Greece.' He reached into his pocket and got out his pipe, a conscious effort to control-himself. ‘When did you arrive?'

‘A few hours ago.'

‘And you came straight here?'

I nodded.

‘Then you haven't seen him yet?'

‘No.'

‘I saw him yesterday. He's in a cottage at Vatahori and I suggest you go and see him before you start asking me whether I have a right to examine this cave-shelter.'

‘You mean he gave you permission?'

‘He's in no fit state to lead an expedition and he knows it. Yes, he agreed that I take over.'

‘I find it very difficult to believe that.'

His little eyes narrowed. ‘He had no alternative.'

‘And if this dig is important, who gets the credit?' I asked.

But he wouldn't give me a straight answer to that. ‘If we did discover something important—' He was filling his pipe, frowning, his movements almost unconscious. ‘Dr Van der Voort couldn't put it across.' His head thrust forward, suddenly belligerent. ‘If you'd ever interested yourself in your father's affairs you'd know that. They wouldn't accept it from him. Nobody would.'

‘But they will from you?'

‘Yes, they will from me.' He lit his pipe, taking his time and looking at me over the flame. ‘Anything else?' He tossed the match clear of the pit, waiting. And then he said, ‘Well, there it is. Nothing for you to worry about—except perhaps your own affairs.' This last was said very pointedly, and then he turned back to the dig, leaving me to wonder whether he had seen that piece in the paper. Or perhaps Kotiadis had been checking up on me.

I wandered around for a moment, looking for the place where the old man had sat, crouching with that stone lamp in his hand. But the pictures Cassellis had taken showed open water. There was no vista of blue sea here, only the dark enclosed gut of the Meganisi Channel. This was a different site, and I went back to the boat, strangely disturbed by the knowledge that there was still another place Holroyd didn't know about.

That afternoon I went with Sonia to Vatahori. We didn't talk much, both of us wrapped in our own thoughts. It was about a two-mile walk from Port Vathy and it did us good, for it was a bright day with just enough breeze to keep us cool, and the island was very beautiful, full of wild flowers and a great sense of peace pervading.

‘They say certain animals have a sense of beauty—places they constantly return to.' Sonia had stopped and was staring out across a green slope with olive trees and a glimpse of the sea beyond. ‘Do you think our early ancestors appreciated beauty? This is so lovely.' Her voice was subdued as though the sheer perfection of land, sea and sky was a physical ache. ‘I thought that olive grove was beautiful. But this …'

We stood for a moment, the sun warm on our backs. It was all so peaceful, only the murmur of the cicadas, the bleat of goats far off. I was very conscious of her then, the desire to touch her almost overwhelming, and the grass of the slope, the shade of the olives inviting. She turned abruptly and we went on, following the road until it turned the shoulder of the hill to give a view of Vatahori. The church and the school looked new, but beyond the cemetery and a dusty open space where the road ended, the old village sprawled over a hilltop like a dark stone rampart. The cottages were small and very old, the passages between no more than tracks of rubble or naked rock. Pappadimas owned one of the few two-storied modern houses, a little way out of the village on the stone track leading down to Port Atheni. His wife, with two brown-eyed children clinging to her skirt, took us round to the back where the old man sat at a table writing with a glass of dark red wine beside him and the half-glasses he used for reading perched on the high beak of his nose. He did not hear us come, sitting hunched forward, totally absorbed, a dark, brooding look on his face.

‘Dr Van der Voort!' Sonia ran forward, eager as a child, and as he saw her the brooding look was wiped away, his face lit up and there was a softness in his eyes I had never seen before. She kissed him, and when she straightened up, I saw that he was smiling. It was a quiet, gentle smile that transformed his whole expression so that suddenly he looked like the man I remembered.

Mrs Pappadimas brought two more glasses and a lemonade bottle full of wine. ‘Krassi,' she said proudly. ‘Kala.'

‘Efharisto.' He was still smiling as he thanked her. ‘It will probably send you to sleep,' he said, filling our glasses. ‘They make it themselves.'

We were with him for about an hour, and most of that time he seemed unusually relaxed. No doubt this was partly due to Sonia's presence. His fondness for her was obvious. Also, he seemed to have come to terms with himself as though he no longer cared what happened. Yes, he had seen Holroyd. They had had a talk the previous evening. ‘Of course, I don't want him to take over. But I can't stop him.' He seemed resigned. ‘I'm tired, and anyway, I've other work to do. A lot of writing.'

I didn't understand it, all the fight gone out of him. Even when I told him about my visit to the cave-shelter, how Holroyd was already finding worked pieces of obsidian, it didn't seem to worry him. ‘Did he comment at all?' And when I said they had agreed it was Solutrean, he nodded, smiling, as though he were actually pleased that they had got it right.

‘There was an arrow-head,' I said, ‘which Holroyd regarded as particularly beautiful work.'

‘Was he able to date it?'

‘He said it was very advanced work—late palæolithic.'

‘He didn't use the word Cro-Magnon?'

‘No.'

‘Ah well, perhaps when they start to dig … They hadn't started, had they?'

‘No. They'd only just arrived. They found it in some loose soil that had fallen from the side of the pit.'