"I'll go now," I said awkwardly.
"Yes, go-quickly. And remember, when you sail from Levkas, there'll be nobody alive but yourself who has seen the work of these cave artists. It will be your secret-and mine. Do you understand?"
I was staring at him, appalled.
"Do you understand, Paul?"
"Yes. Yes, I think so."
He reached up and seized hold of my hand again. "If I'm right-and I am right-the trail of Levkas Man leads on through the Sicilian offshore islands of Levanzo and Maret-timo to Pantelleria and the coast of Africa-Tunisia probably, maybe Djerba." The grip on my hand tightened convulsively. "Paul! Promise me. Promise me that you'll go on. That you'll follow the trail, prove me right."
"I've no qualifications. And anyway. ."
"You don't need qualifications. All you need is conviction and the driving urgency that it gives you. Experts will always follow a dedicated, determined man. Look at Schliemann- an amateur. He believed in Homer. And as a result, he discovered Troy, Mycenae, Knossos. You could be the same. Building on my reputation and on the manuscripts I have left with Sonia. Promise me." He was staring up into my face, the grip of his fingers suddenly like iron.
I didn't know what to say. That I'd no money? That his world was too remote? That, anyway, Cartwright would break through that rock fall to discover Holroyd's body and the painted cave that he so desperately wanted to preserve for himself as a total secret? "I'm going now," I said finally.
The grip on my hand slowly relaxed until his arm dropped slackly, and he sat there, his back against the wall, his body bowed. He seemed suddenly to have shrunk, the collapse of his spirit deflating him physically. I left him then, feeling sick at heart, hating the place and the evil that lurked there, glad when the paintings were behind me. I didn't look back as I entered the gallery of the mammoths. I didn't want to see his loneliness, the crumpled dejection of his body squatting there below the red belly of that bull.
I came out into the cave beyond with its pool of black sea water. And there was Holroyd's body still floating, a reminder that something had been done here that could not be undone. The atmosphere of evil breathed down my neck, emanating from the painted caves. Alone, I had difficulty getting the heavy cylinder onto my back. I did it in a sitting position, and as I struggled to my feet, the torch shone on a half-segment of stone. I recognized it instantly-another of those Stone Age lamps. I should have realized the significance of it, lying there broken on the rock floor, but my mind was on other things and it didn't connect. All I knew, as I slung the lead belt round my waist and pulled the mask down over my face, was that its presence added to my sense of evil. I was in such a hurry then that I almost forgot to check the state of my air. Nervously my fingers felt for the stem indicator, relieved to find that the cylinder was still almost half-full.
I entered the water with only one thing in my mind, to get the hell out of that place as quickly as possible. But then, when I was in the water, my fears left me. The practical side of me seemed to take command. Almost without thinking I swam over to the rope, drew the diver's knife from the sheath strapped to my calf, and cut the end of it where it trailed in the water. I tied a bowline, and then, making a noose, slipped it over Holroyd's arm. That was when I saw the wound in his head, the white of bone jagged around a grey pulp. His skull had been cracked like the shell of an egg. I trod water for a moment, staring at that wound half-concealed by the dark hair waving like weed in the water, understanding now what the old man had been talking about, his total rejection of rescue. Understanding, too, the broken segment of that stone lamp.
I felt suddenly very cold, cold in my guts, and I turned quickly and dived for the blow hole, trailing the corpse behind me like a dog on a lead. What I had started to do instinctively, a sort of tidying-up operation, now became a matter of urgency, for I couldn't leave it there in the pool to stare the first rescuer in the face. But it was only when I came out through the roof into the lower cavern, the hiss of the demand valve in my ears and the blatter of my bubbled exhalations disappearing into the hole behind me, that I paused to consider what I was going to do with it.
If I took it out into the channel it would be discovered almost at once, and then the questions would start. The alternative was to conceal it in a crevice, but that meant weighting it with a rock, and the only means I had of fastening a rock to it was with the rope. I hung there in the cave, the body ballooning above me, ghostly at the end of its umbilical nylon cord. Tie a rock to it and if it were discovered, then it would be obvious that his death had not been a natural one. The bubbles of my breathing warned me that I could not stay there indefinitely. I glanced at the watch on my wrist. It was 1 1.12- almost an hour and a half since I had left the boat. And I had forgotten to check the time when I had entered the water in the cavern above.
I dived then to where daylight showed as a pale glimmer below the fallen slab. My torch showed a crevice above the slab. I pulled on the rope, got hold of the stiff cold body and pushed it in, trudging energetically with my flippers. I left him there, taking the rope end with me, and wriggled through inider the slab into the open water of the Meganisi Channel.
I can still remember the growing brightness of the sunlight as I slanted upwards, going out past the rock with the sandal on it, across a plain of sea grass until I could see the underwater shape of Coromandel, a dark whale-shadow bulging below the surface of the sea, which was like the back of a mirror, flecked with a myriad dust-motes iridescent in the sun. And as I broke through it and saw the boat with its masts against the blue sky, it was like coming out of a nightmare.
I reached the ladder, clambering awkwardly out, no longer weightless, cylinder and belt dragging at me. And then Sonia's face, as I pushed the mask up blinking in the sun, and Gilmore behind her, the red sea horses bright as blood. "Are you all right, Paul? What happened? You've been so long." Her voice was remote, a muffled sound, my ears clogged.
"I'm okay," I mumbled, collapsing on the hot deck, where I lay in a pool of water, my lungs gasping for air. I felt utterly drained, tired beyond belief. Her hands were on my shoulders, \vorking at the straps. She was bending over me, and when she had freed me of the weight of the cylinder, she groped under my body to find the quick release clasp of the belt and slipped the lead weight from my waist.
I sat up then, feeling dazed-the sunshine, the sky, the smell of the land and the mountains towering brown; but it was like a picture postcard, something unreal. The reality was in my mind, the memory of that cave with my father
talking and Holroyd's body floating in the still dark pool.
"What happened? Did you find him?" Sonia, still bending over me, her face drained, her eyes large. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, I'm all right." My voice sounded disembodied, remote.
"What happened then?"
"Nothing."
"You've been gone over an hour and a half. What did you find?"
"Nothing, I tell you." I got to my feet, standing there shivering in the sunlight.
"But. ." She was staring at me, searching my face, probing for the truth I dared not tell her. "You found him? You must have found him."
I started to push past her, but she gripped my arm. "Please-" She was clinging to me and I flung her off.
"Leave me alone," I said.
"Tell me, Paul. Please tell me what you found." And then she added on a conciliatory note, "You're shivering. I'll get you a towel."