The ruins of the chapel came upon her jagged and threatening in the torchlight. But her terror was suddenly magnified by something worse. At first it was just a faint movement on the track ahead. Then, silently, there emerged from the darkness a figure leading an animal whose shape at first had no meaning. She shrank back into the vegetation beside the track. The torch slipped from her hand, sending its useless beam deep into the undergrowth. As the pair came closer she saw that the animal was carrying across its back something heavy and bound in sackcloth. Still there was no sound. It had to be that they would stop, having seen her torch, but they pressed on, as if not needing light, taking no notice of her. She tried to call after, but the words were stifled in her throat. Then the pair was gone.
Scrabbling in the undergrowth she recovered her torch and continued up the track. Father Petros must have seen the light from his cell, for he was waiting for her at the open door of the monastery.
Emma woke the following morning to find herself lying on a simple straw mattress covered by a single blanket. The curtains were being drawn back by a woman dressed in the black habit of a nun. Light flooded into the room, hurting her eyes.
‘We thought it sensible to let you sleep,’ the nun said. ‘When you’re ready we can go across to Father Petros. He’s waiting to speak with you.’
Father Petros handed her a mug of tea. ‘I asked Sister Melina to come and look after you. It’s lucky the convent is so close. The police are still searching the monastery but so far there’s been no sign of your husband. With daylight we should be able to find him.’
‘You think he came here?’ she asked.
‘Well, that’s the puzzle. He may have done, but we can’t be sure. If you’re feeling brave there’s something I need to show you.’
In the cellar beneath the inquisition room Emma saw the scattered fragments of the broken stool. ‘That’s difficult to explain,’ Father Patros said, ‘but what’s more odd is this.’ He handed her the fragment of parchment from the codex. ‘It was lying on the floor here.’
Emma stared at the piece of parchment, dimly recalling its origin. She handed it back to him. ‘Can you tell me what it says?’
‘It recounts the fate of the young monk, Antonis Stavros, who was… well… died here. It seems that after his death his body was taken by boat to his home village on the island of Evia, which you can see across the water from here – and from your house. For some reason neither the boat nor Antonis reached their destination. Can you think why that might have interested your husband?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. Then it occurred to her to ask, ‘If my husband was here, wouldn’t he have been seen coming out?’
‘You’d think so, especially as there were people in the hallway most of the time. Perhaps I shouldn’t tell you this, but one of the monks said he thought he heard a noise, possibly a scream. But of course he could have been mistaken. After that there were people about all the time.’
The police search continued, but Emma knew there was no point in telling them what in her heart she knew would never be believed. The investigations would have to run their course, then be quietly forgotten amongst the records of lost persons. Sister Melina stayed with her that day and into the evening, by which time a friend from Volos – Carol Jackson – had arrived to keep her company. They stood together on the veranda, looking down the valley.
‘You mentioned a light out to sea,’ Sister Melina said, ‘but I don’t see anything now.’
‘I don’t suppose you will,’ Emma replied.
When Sister Melina had gone Carol said, ‘I’m sure the police will find Hugh in the morning.’
‘Perhaps,’ Emma said, not really listening. Instead she was thumbing through a notebook she had picked up from the coffee table.
‘What’s that?’ Carol asked.
‘It’s Hugh’s address book. You may not remember Graham Spooner…’
‘The barrister?’
‘Right. He was the chief prosecutor at Tony Savage’s trial. The conviction against the odds threw him into the spotlight. It boosted his career – which is more than can be said of my husband’s. As it happens they were close friends, in spite of Hugh being heavily in debt to him. I thought I’d invite him to the memorial service, assuming we have one.’
‘Memorial service? Isn’t that a bit premature?’
‘Maybe.’ Emma paused, at first uncertain whether to continue. ‘I think Graham Spooner might be interested to look around the monastery.’ She got up and walked to the window, then stood staring out towards the sea. ‘I must remember to mention it to Father Petros.’
WINDOW ON THE MIND
The flick of the switch, rather than extinguishing the lights of the primate room, only resulted in a barely perceptible dimming – the simulation of dusk – that would take another half-hour to reach extinction. Alex Parker lingered in the doorway, his finger still on the switch. He stared into the void between the cages banked on either side of the central gangway. Tiny hands clasping the vertical shiny steel bars were all he could see of the monkeys within, but he could still recognise each of them. ‘Goodnight Vanessa, Charlie Boy and the rest of you,’ he called. He could not tell whether the sudden rattling of the bars was in answer, but he chose to think that tonight – of all nights – it really was.
He had known some of these monkeys since he joined the company as a raw graduate in toxicology almost a decade before. In the early days he had flexed his young muscles, and management, over the years, had made the cages larger and their contents more interesting. As the lot of the animals improved, some of the anger seemed to go out of their eyes. Alex liked to think it was gratitude, but experience told him that for wild animals such as these that could not be so. Still, given the constraints of his work, he thought he had not acquitted himself badly.
Down the corridor his fellow scientists were still busy logging data into their computers. More disciplined than they, he had cleared his own work and closed his terminal. But tonight he was drawn back to it and switched it on. As the dense columns of figures reappeared he flicked the screen with his finger. ‘Just has to be,’ he whispered to himself. Then he copied the results to disc, switched the machine off and went home.
Alex knew that this departure from his usual routine – fifteen minutes of inconsequential time – would not go unpunished by his wife. The food was already getting cold on the table.
‘Have you forgotten Jessica’s got her first exam tomorrow?’ Margery demanded.
‘There were some unusual findings,’ Alex said. ‘I had to stay.’
Across the table his daughter was sketching aimlessly, from time to time chewing at her pencil. She seemed oblivious to her parents’ bickering.
‘So what’s so new?’ Margery persisted. ‘The drugs you feed those animals either make them sick or stop them getting that way. What’s so different this time?’
Alex swivelled in his chair to avoid the angry eyes that every mealtime now seemed to find a different fuel to burn. The day before it had been their forgotten wedding anniversary, the day before that keeping her waiting in the supermarket car park – trivial things that a more reasonable person might take in their stride. No way would he tempt providence by telling her that he had discovered something quite remarkable, something so unusual that he had even – and for the first time – withheld it from his colleagues.