The Lost Labyrinth (38 page)

‘Let me in,’ he demanded. ‘Let me in.’

‘Leave me alone.’

‘This is crazy, Gaille. You’re acting like a crazy person.’ He pounded on the door so hard that the wood trembled and the chair ceded a few millimetres. He hit it again and the chair fell away altogether. She threw her shoulder against it and tried to hold him back, but he was far too strong for her, pushing her slithering backwards. She retreated against the work table. He advanced upon her, reached out and touched her breast again, purposefully this time. She crossed her arms in front of her and turned her shoulder. The shelf of chemicals snagged her eye as she did so, all those skull and crossbones labels. She reached out and grabbed a bottle of sodium hydroxide, twisted off its lid and discharged it at his face. He cried out and closed his eyes and flapped wildly at the white powder.

She broke away and ran to the steps and up, slamming the trap door down after her. There was no lock, so she tried to shift the armchair back over it. He was too quick for her, however; the trap-door flew up and slammed onto its back and then he was out, fumbling like some horror-movie zombie. She fled outside, where Argo was barking and jumping against the wire of his pen, sensing she was in trouble. She unbolted the door, went inside, grabbed his leash and tried to buckle it to his collar; but he was too excited to stay still, he kept dancing in wild circles, snatching the buckle from her fingers.

‘Come out of there,’ demanded Iain, his face reddened by the caustic soda, tears streaming from his eyes.

‘Stay away.’ She finally clipped on the leash, wrapped it around her fist, then opened the door. Argo lunged at Iain; it was all Gaille could do to hold him.

‘Keep him back,’ yelled Iain, taking hold of the Mauser by its barrel, wielding it like a club.

She hauled Argo away to her right. It was a battle at first, but then he abruptly conceded and forged ahead instead, snuffling intoxicating scents in the grass, dragging her flailing helplessly in his wake like some out-of-control water-skier. She tried to steer him towards the escarpment, but he was too strong and determined, he wanted to go north.

‘Come back,’ said Iain.

‘Leave me alone.’

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I
was
in Athens. I admit it. I heard Petitier was going to give a talk, and I got angry. I don’t know why. I suppose I’d come to think of this place as mine. I went to Athens hoping to talk him out of it. I waited for him in the lobby. When he checked in, I overheard his room number, so I went up to talk to him. But he never showed. He must have spotted me. And, anyway, all those archaeologists there made me realise what a dick I was being. Whatever he’s found here doesn’t belong to me
or
to him. It
belongs to everyone. He was doing the right thing. So I took the first flight back to Crete. That’s when Knox left all his messages and I found out what had happened. Of course I kept my mouth shut. If I’d owned up to being there, the police would have jumped to all kinds of conclusions. You don’t know what the Greek police are like. The last thing on earth you want is to be caught up in a murder enquiry here.’

Argo had dragged Gaille to the edge of the yellow gorse, was now following it around. He suddenly turned and plunged into the gorse itself, forcing Gaille to follow. There was a path of sorts, wending this way and that through the prickly labyrinth, but it was so narrow that she had to turn sideways to follow it, doing her best to cushion her sore ankle each time she landed. Argo never hesitated, the scent strong in his nostrils. But it was only when Gaille saw a dried crust of orange peel on the ground that she realised it wasn’t just
any
scent Argo was following.

It was Petitier’s.

The Hyundai’s engine was gurgling and clattering, but somehow Knox made it down to the coast. He passed the port of Hora Sfakion, headed
inland again, up a steep and zigzagging road. He put the gear-stick into second for a tight corner and then couldn’t get it out again. He reached the top, then passed through the small town of Anapoli. Men were sitting at two tables outside a café in the square; they got to their feet when they saw him bunny-hopping along, and started clapping and whooping him on, like he was a cyclist in the Tour de France. He followed signs to Agia Georgio. His mobile began to ring as he rattled across a gorge on a timber bridge, but it fell off the passenger seat when he fumbled for it, and slid beyond his reach. He didn’t dare stop to retrieve it, lest the car wouldn’t restart.

The landscape was as calm as his nerves were jangled. Hills, woods and meadows, untended flocks of sheep and goats. A flight of finches took off ahead of him and fled down a narrow tunnel of trees. He reached Agia Georgio to find a gate barring the road, leaving him no choice but to stop. His engine stalled at once, as he’d feared it would, and wouldn’t restart. His mobile began ringing again. He grabbed it from beneath the seat. ‘Yes?’

‘It’s me,’ said Angelos. ‘Now I want you to listen. I don’t want you getting alarmed.’

‘Alarmed?’ asked Knox, getting out of the car and letting himself through the gate. ‘What’s happened?’ A Doberman leashed to a fencepost
started barking so furiously that he had to clamp a hand over his ear to hear.

‘It’s just, there’s some confusion about the body we recovered from the wreckage last night,’ said Angelos. ‘It may not have been Mikhail Nergadze after all.’

Somehow, it wasn’t the shock to Knox it might have been. Somehow, he’d almost expected it. ‘Tell me,’ he said, giving the Doberman a wide berth.

‘The Citroen was rented to a Belgian businessman named Josef Jannsen. He flew in from Bruges to check out a nightclub down in Varkiza he was thinking of buying. He was due to meet the owners there last night, but he never showed.’

Knox jogged up a narrow cobbled road to a village square. A mountain spring was splashing into a carved stone drinking fountain. He scooped a mouthful of the icy melt-water before continuing on up. ‘You’re saying it was this guy Jannsen in the car, not Nergadze?’

‘That’s how it looks. According to one of the Georgians, Nergadze had a bunch of tattoos; but there weren’t any on the body we found. Nergadze must have realised there’d be a major manhunt for him. This must have been his way of stopping it before it could get started. We think he waited in car-hire until this poor bastard Jannsen turned up. He killed him and cut off his hair and then traded clothes with him. Then he set the driver’s
seat as low and as far back as it would go, belted Jannsen in and sat on top of him.’ A stout woman dressed all in black watched suspiciously from the shadows of her porch. ‘Maybe he genuinely hoped to drive out,’ continued Angelos. ‘I can’t say. But he certainly had a contingency plan. We know he’d been to that industrial area before. We found the second Mercedes in a lock-up there, along with the body of one of his men, the one who tried to steal his cash. So it looks as though he deliberately led us there, yelled out his name so we’d be certain it was him, then drove at that container.’

Knox nodded, picturing how it would have happened. ‘He’d have waited till the last moment, then dived down passenger side.’

‘Maybe that’s why he chose a convertible, because the roof would shear off more cleanly. Or maybe that was just luck. And that’s why it was raining cash. It looked like a lot of money, but it was only a fraction of what was in the case. We reckon he scattered it around precisely so that the first policeman to get to the car would be watching it, rather than the trees. Meanwhile, he’d have hidden the rest of the money along with some clean clothes and Jannsen’s passport and wallet; I’ll bet once he was out of the car and away, he collected them, cleaned himself up, then went calm as you like into the terminal. Only a crazy man would even contemplate such
a thing, of course. But from everything you’ve told us…’

‘Into the terminal?’ asked Knox. The road deteriorated into an unsealed track. He jogged along it, his breath coming faster. A mule munched grass as it watched him pass. ‘You’re not saying he just flew out of there?’

‘It looks like it,’ admitted Angelos. ‘At least, someone flew out last night, using Jannsen’s name and credit card.’

‘Nergadze,’ said Knox. ‘Where did he go?’

‘This is why I don’t want you getting alarmed,’ said Angelos.

‘Oh, Christ!’ said Knox. ‘He flew to Crete, didn’t he? He’s going for Gaille.’

‘He can’t be
that
crazy. He’s on the run, remember. He must know we’ll work it out eventually. He’s certain to go to ground.’

‘No,’ said Knox. ‘He’s going for Gaille.’

A shout at the other end of the line. ‘Bear with me,’ said Angelos. Knox could hear angry voices, recriminations. He kept running, the phone clamped against his ear. The track grew worse. He saw a roadblock of boulders ahead, and two cars parked side-by-side in the trees. ‘Okay,’ said Angelos. ‘Here’s the very latest. Heraklion Airport has confirmed that Jannsen landed late last night. He hired himself a rental. A Mazda.’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Knox. ‘Licence plate: HKN 1447.’

‘How the hell did you know that?’

‘Because he’s here,’ said Knox numbly. ‘He got here before me.’

Argo surged irrepressibly through the gorse, cutting beneath the worst of the thorns, with Gaille, still hanging onto his leash, taking numerous scratches on her hands and arms. She half stumbled on a stone and cried out and hauled him back so violently that he stopped at last, if only in surprise, allowing her to recover her balance and glance back.

Iain was striding through the gorse behind her, but that wasn’t what shocked her. What shocked her was that a third person had appeared, a man wearing jeans and a green sweatshirt and a plain blue baseball cap tugged down over his eyes, who’d also found the mouth of the path and was following them along it.

Iain must have seen the surprise on Gaille’s face,
for he whirled around. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he demanded.

The man held up his hands to allay suspicion. ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘I’m a friend.’

Iain grabbed his Mauser from his shoulder, levelled it at the man’s chest. ‘I’ll be the judge of that,’ he said. ‘What’s your name? What are you doing here?’

‘My name’s Mikhail,’ replied the man, spreading his arms as wide as crucifixion, but still walking towards Iain. He nodded pleasantly at Gaille. ‘Your friend Daniel sent me. He’s worried sick about you. You should have called him.’

‘We can’t get a signal,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Is that all it was?’

‘Stay where you are,’ ordered Iain.

‘Please lower that thing,’ said Mikhail. ‘I hate guns.’

‘I said stay where you are.’

‘I’m one of the good guys,’ said Mikhail, continuing his advance. ‘I can prove it.’ He extended his left palm forward, like a policeman stopping traffic, then reached behind him with his right hand, and drew a hunting knife from his belt.

‘What the fuck…?’ muttered Iain, taking off the Mauser’s safety-catch. ‘Stay back!’

But it was too late, Mikhail was already on him. He swatted away the Mauser barrel with his left hand, then thrust the knife hard up beneath Iain’s
ribcage, lifting him off his feet for a moment, giving the blade a sharp, vindictive twist. The Mauser discharged with a futile crack, clattered to the ground. Mikhail pulled out the knife, allowing Iain to slump to his knees and onto his back, making ghastly keening and sucking sounds. ‘Guns don’t kill people,’ Mikhail told him piously, as he wiped the blade on his sleeve and put it back in his belt. ‘
People
kill people.’ Then he picked up the Mauser and turned it on Gaille.

It was only now that she recognised him from the lift. He saw it in her eyes and grinned. ‘I told you I had a good memory for faces,’ he said.

The Mazda was locked, but Knox could see discarded packaging on the passenger seat. ‘He’s armed,’ he told Angelos bleakly. ‘He’s got himself a hunting knife.’

‘Don’t do anything stupid. I’ll send cars.’

‘Cars?’ asked Knox. ‘How long before they get here? How long before they can get to Gaille?’

‘A helicopter, then. I’ll call the army.’

‘It’ll still be hours,’ said Knox. ‘I can’t wait. Gaille can’t wait.’ The track zigzagged upwards towards the pass between two high peaks high above him, but he picked a more direct line and
set off up it, as fast as he could without exhausting himself. A bell tolled on a distant slope, and monks began to chant. It sounded almost like a funeral. The ground was thick with purple lavender that buzzed with insects. He passed through a collar of scorched pines out onto steeper slopes of gaunt rock. It took all his strength of will to maintain his pace until he’d made it up to the mouth of the pass.

It grew easier at once, the flatter terrain and a cooling wind blowing in his face. He ran as fast as his weariness and the treacherous footing would allow. Gaille must have come this way with Iain. The thought reminded him of his earlier suspicions about his university friend. He’d forgotten them completely in the shock of Angelos’ news about Mikhail, but surely they were worth reporting. He checked his mobile. He still had enough signal to make a call.

‘I’m getting your helicopter,’ Angelos promised. ‘You have to give me time.’

‘It’s not about that,’ panted Knox. ‘I think I know who that man in the CCTV is.’

‘And?’

‘His name’s Iain Parkes.’ He came to a wire fence, its stakes topped by animal skulls. He pushed down the top strand and straddled it. ‘He’s an archaeologist at Knossos. And he’s with Gaille right now.’

‘Okay,’ said Angelos.

‘Okay?’ protested Knox, as he continued along the pass. ‘She’s stuck on her own with two killers, and you’re telling me it’s okay?’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just the coroner sent over his toxicology report earlier. He now thinks our initial assessment was wrong, that Petitier wasn’t killed by a blow to his head, after all.’

‘What?’

‘It was a heart attack, almost certainly brought about by an overdose. His system was flooded with drugs. Cocaine. Opium. Speed. Acid. You name it. I’ve never seen levels this high. You could boil down his blood and sell it on the street for millions.’