‘That’s her,’ Hiebermeyer murmured. ‘She knows her stuff, but someone’s definitely put a gag order on her.’
‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Jack?’ Maria said.
‘I don’t want to muddy the waters,’ Jack murmured. ‘We have a history.’ He glanced again at the woman, his expression troubled, and then looked back at Maria. ‘As you said, when you get the go-ahead here, you go ahead. I’ll try to have a word with her later.’
Costas looked at Hiebermeyer. ‘Do the superintendency people join you in the tunnel?’
‘Officially, no. They’re afraid of a collapse. That’s the official reason why they’ve refused to authorize a full excavation. Any further tunnelling will increase the risk of collapse, threatening the modern town above. Far better to seal up the tunnel again for another two hundred years.’
‘And unofficially?’
‘Yesterday, as soon as we found what they wanted, Dr d’Agostino and those workmen were in there like a shot. I imagine they’ve been trying to get the statue out while we’ve been gone. But she wasn’t with us when we went further into the tunnel, and you’ll soon see why they won’t have tried on their own.’ Hiebermeyer pulled at the lock on the door of the wooden structure, then signalled with his hand to one of the guards. ‘We have to wait for the guard to unlock it for us,’ he grumbled. ‘Another little ritual.’ The guard saw him, but pointedly continued talking to the other guard, doing nothing. The workmen started up an electric drill, putting them out of earshot. ‘The guards know perfectly well what I want. All in their own time.’
‘Welcome to the Villa of the Papyri,’ Costas said ruefully.
‘I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,’ Jack murmured.
‘There are some excellent archaeologists here, and I have good friends in the superintendency,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘They do what they can. But they have to battle the system. Some end up thriving on it, getting sucked in. Only here even those people seem subdued, oppressed, as if they’ve been locked down by some bigger force. Others fall by the wayside, get eliminated.’
‘You mean offed?’ Costas said in a hushed voice. ‘They really do that here?’
‘Usually not quite that dramatic, but sometimes. A car crash, a boating accident. Usually it’s more mundane. Threats, bribery, intimidation, tampering with personal financial records. People can easily be brought down in this place, if they’re honest.’
‘If they’re honest,’ Costas repeated, shaking his head.
‘But there are some good ones who do reach the top and hang in there,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘The current chief superintendent is one of them, our lady’s boss. We wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t given the go-ahead, against all kind of pressure from somewhere. Needless to say, he has permanent bodyguards, but then that’s not uncommon for officials in Naples.’
‘I still don’t understand what the Mafia could want with this place,’ Costas said.
‘I don’t even know for sure that the Mafia are involved. Nobody seems to know. You just have to assume it. It’s not only the trade in stolen antiquities, and you can rest assured that goes on here. There’s also a huge amount of money tied up in archaeological tourism.’
‘Speaking of archaeology, what’s the story here?’ Costas said.
‘It all began in 1750,’ Hiebermeyer said, suddenly animated. ‘A Swiss army engineer named Karl Weber took over the excavations at Herculaneum. A few weeks later a well-digger discovered a marble floor, probably right about where we are now. Eventually they tunnelled all over this place, and Weber realized they had a huge villa, bigger than anything else they’d seen. It was smash and grab, statues, mosaics, anything. Then they started finding carbonized scrolls. They didn’t realize what they were, and some of the diggers even took them away and used them as firelighters, believe it or not. Then they realized they were papyrus. Eventually most of the legible ones were interpreted as part of the Greek library of an obscure philosopher called Philodemus.’
‘He was probably patronized by the rich owner of this house,’ Jack said. ‘A kind of philosopher mascot. Whether or not there was a Latin library too has always been the big question.’
‘And the tunnel, the one we’re going into, the one revealed by the earthquake?’ Costas asked.
‘It’s one of the early tunnels, dug by Weber’s men, heading towards the area of the villa where the library was found. It was sealed up while Weber was still in charge.’
‘Any idea why?’
‘That’s what we’re here to find out.’
‘Do we know who owned this place?’ Costas said.
‘That’s the beauty of this period, leading up to the eruption,’ Jack replied. ‘We know a lot of the names of aristocrats from the Roman historians, from Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, half a dozen others.
‘Cue your first treat,’ Hiebermeyer interrupted, beaming. ‘What alerted the superintendency to the earthquake’s effect on this site was that part of the solidified mud wall in this trench collapsed, over there. We may as well look at it now while our guard finishes his cigarette.’
They made their way past the group of workmen, who were now clearing away chunks of rocky conglomerate, and came to a gap where a section had fallen away from the trench wall. Elizabeth d’Agostino was standing only a few metres away with a clipboard, talking rapidly to a man with the same ID around his neck, evidently another inspector. Jack tried to catch her eye, but failed. ‘It’ll be months before they clear all this,’ Hiebermeyer muttered to Jack as they picked their way through the rubble. ‘Every possible reason for delay will be found. Someone, someone really big, wants this place shut down, and I think they’re going to have their way.’
‘Not if we can help it,’ Jack murmured.
‘There are three big forces at play around here,’ Hiebermeyer continued quietly, mopping the sweat off his brow. ‘The first is the volcano. The second is the Mafia, organized crime.’
‘And the third is the Church,’ Jack said.
‘Correct.’
‘Pretty volatile mix,’ Costas said loudly, then coughed as he saw the inspector glance at them.
‘Makes doing archaeology in Egypt seem like a piece of cake,’ Hiebermeyer murmured. ‘Sometimes I think they’re wishing for another eruption, to seal this place up for ever. It seems that the huge loss of life that would result, the destruction of these sites and all the archaeology and the loss of tourist money would be nothing compared to the danger of what might be found here. What that might be, I don’t know, but someone’s frightened of something. I suspect someone powerful in the Church is worried about a great revelation, an ancient document that might undermine their authority. Look how much obstruction there was when the Dead Sea Scrolls were revealed in Israel. Another pyroclastic flow from Vesuvius would eliminate the threat here for all time.’
‘Let’s hope you’ve found enough to keep the door open before that happens.’
‘You’re going to be amazed,’ Hiebermeyer whispered, looking at Jack intently. ‘What we’ve found. Trust me.’ They reached a table covered with safety gear, and he turned and spoke loudly. ‘Hard hats on. Health and safety regulations.’
‘They have those in Naples?’ Costas said pointedly. The inspector looked around again, and Jack shot Costas a warning look. They both donned orange hard hats, followed by the others. Everyone followed Maria and stooped in file under the overhang into a cavity about five metres deep, decreasing in height to the point where Maria at the far end was forced to squat down. Costas crawled in beside Jack and pressed his hand on the irregular grey surface above them.
‘See what I mean?’ Jack said. ‘Hard as rock.’
‘Must have been a nightmare to excavate.’
‘Here we are.’ Hiebermeyer pointed. Emerging from the solidified mud in front of them was a smoothed slab of masonry, veins of blue and green visible on the polished white surface.
‘Cipollino,’ Jack murmured, stroking the surface appreciatively. ‘Euboean marble, from Greece. Very nice. No expense spared in this villa.’