His manner, his whole attitude to the dig, annoyed me. I had expected enthusiasm, a sense of excitement, something that would enable me to understand what it was my father was searching for. Instead, he was making it all seem dull and ordinary, like those students you read about digging around in the foundations of old hill forts in Britain. "You haven't been in charge of a dig before, have you?"
"Not in charge. But I've been on digs before."
"Where?"
"In Suffolk-Clactonian Man. In Germany and France. Why?" He was frowning. "Why are you so interested in this cave? You're not an anthropologist."
"No. I'm a ship's officer." I stared at him, trying to see into his mind, trying to understand. "You came out here with a man who's regarded as a brilliant palaeontologist and you don't seem to know what his theory is, what he's working towards. Didn't Holroyd brief you?"
"Of course. And I knew Dr. Van der Voort's reputation."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's common knowledge. Planting that skull in a dig in Africa. Trying to fool people, and then working for Moscow and twisting his theories to suit the Russians. He may be brilliant. I know some people think so. But it's a damn tricky sort of brilliance."
"What was he trying to prove here in Greece? Or don't you know?"
"Yes, of course I do."
"Well?"
"The Cro-Magnon-Mousterian gap. That's something anthropologists have been puzzling over for years. He had a theory about that. But his main interest was to prove that Homo sapiens sapiens-modern man-came up from Africa across a mythical land-bridge. It was a complete reversal of all that he had written previously."
"You don't agree with him then?"
He hesitated. "Well, if you want to know, I think a man should be consistent; he shouldn't switch his ideas to suit his convenience the way Dr. Van der Voort did."
"And you didn't believe in it?" I insisted.
The question seemed to worry him. "No," he said finally, "No, I didn't." He said it reluctantly, as though I had forced the admission out of him.
"Then what's the point of this expedition?"
"To check. There's always a chance, you know."
"An outside chance, as far as you're concerned?"
"Well, yes, if you like. It's a theory, nothing more. And a pretty wild one. If you knew anything about anthropology you'd realize that."
I turned to Hans Winters. "Is that what you think?"
He stared at me, not saying anything, a stubborn, mulish look on his face.
"What puzzles me," I said, turning back to Cartwright, "is why Holroyd got him a grant, why he sent you out to spy on him, if there's no basis for his theory."
"I w-wasn't spying. I was here to help." Two angry spots of colour showed in his cheeks.
"If you'd done that, he wouldn't have disappeared."
He stared at me, his face flushed. "You don't seem to understand what sort of a man Dr. Van der Voort is."
"I think I do."
"He's mad." He said it almost viciously.
"He's difficult, I agree. But I've no reason to believe that he's mad."
"Then why did he attack me? Suddenly like that, and for no reason."
"That's what I came to find out."
"He was like a maniac."
"I think you'd better explain." I was keeping a tight rein on my temper. "Suppose you tell me exactly what happened?"
He hesitated, staring at me owlishly as though I'd dug a pit for him. "There's nothing to tell you," he said. "Nothing you don't know, I imagine. He called me out of my tent. He'd been for his usual walk and I came out and saw him standing there in the moonlight. And then he went for me. No warning-nothing. He just seemed to go berserk. And he had that stick with him, the one he always carries." He moved his left arm slightly. "It broke my wrist."
"You wrote to Holroyd that there was an argument."
"Did I?" He seemed surprised. "I don't remember." And he added, "In fact, I don't remember much about it. I was pretty badly knocked up."
"What time was it?"
"I've told all this to Mr. Kotiadis."
I moved a few steps nearer, staring him in the face, getting a sense of pleasure almost as I saw him shrink back. "Well, you're telling it to me now," I said. "Go on. What time did it happen?"
"Sh-shortly after eleven o'clock."
"And there was no argument, no altercation?"
"No."
"Do you mean to say he attacked you without a word?"
"I tell you, I don't remember."
I couldn't decide whether that was the truth, or whether there was more to it. In the end I left it at that. If there had been a reason for the attack, then he wasn't admitting it-not yet. And with Kotiadis standing there, I felt this wasn't the moment to question him about his telephone call to Athens. I turned to Hans Winters. "Where were you when this happened?"
"In my tent."
"And you didn't hear anything?"
"The first I knew about it was when Alec woke me with blood on his face and in pain from his broken wrist." And he added, "I sleep very heavily." His manner was surly, and though his English was good, the accent was more pronounced than his sister's.
"And what did you do then?"
"I went out to look for Dr. Van der Voort."
"And by then he'd gone?"
"Ja. He'd gone. The Land-Rover, too."
A small wind had sprung up and it was suddenly quite cool. Cartwright was already putting on his shirt, moving away from me. Somewhere on the hillside above us bells were tinkling. "Goats?" I asked.
Hans Winters nodded. "Ja. Goats."
The breeze was from the north, carrying the sound with it, but the wide mouth of the cave, with its beetling overhang, blocked all sight of the hillside above. I moved further into the cave, staring about me. The floor was packed hard, dry powdery earth flattened by long ages of occupation, and embedded in it were great slabs of rock fallen from the arch of the overhang. They had cut their trench a little left of centre, from the back right out to the beginning of the drop down into the valley. It was about 3 feet wide and 4 feet deep at the outer edge. The parapet of it came up to Hans Winters's chest. "So this is what you call a cave-shelter?"
He nodded.
"Does that mean occupied by men?"
"We think so."
"How do you know?" He smiled. "We don't yet. In recent years it's been a winter shelter for sheep and goats. The first thing we had to do was to remove the stock fence." He indicated the stones piled at the side. "That was a dry-stone wall-right across the whole mouth of it, three or four feet high."
I glanced back at Cartwright, but he was now talking to Kotiadis. Down in the valley sheep were moving along the
grass at the river's edge. It was like being on a natural balcony, the valley spread out below and a glimpse of purpled mountains across the tops of the hills opposite. "Very different sort of country to Holland." I wanted to get him talking.
"Ja." And for the first time I caught a gleam of warmth in his eyes. "Is good. I like these hills, the valley. It's very beautiful. But I miss the sea."
"The sea's not all that far away," I said, smiling. He couldn't be more than nineteen and he was homesick. "Did my father talk about the islands at all?"
"Ja, ja. Often. He thought our species of man came up through the islands-the Ionian islands. Across from Africa and through Sicily." He glanced quickly towards Cartwright, and seeing that he was out of earshot, he added, "Alec doesn't see it that way. He's a flat earth man." He grinned. It was a grin that lightened the heaviness of his Dutch face, so that for a moment I glimpsed the elfin look his sister had. "He's very practical, likes everything straightforward and simple. Dr. Van der Voort was a man of ideas, of vision."
"Did you like him?"
He stared at me, the warmth fading, the surliness returning. "I thought him very interesting, very intelligent. That's why I came on this expedition. I like his ideas."