the wood, with its towering trees and its dense undergrowth of laurel. They presented an impenetrable screen, but he had a pretty good idea of what lay beyond.
'Stay here,' he said.
He lost his footing as he hurried down the slope, stumbling badly, painfully. Gathering himself on the level ground, he called up to Harry. 'Tell me where she's looking.'
'What?'
'Where she's looking. Tell me exactly where she's looking.'
He hurried off, hobbling. He had done something to his ankle. It wasn't hurting yet, but he could tell it would be, and soon.
When he reached the tree line, he turned and shouted, 'Here?'
Harry gesticulated and yelled back, 'Up a bit. Bit more. That's right. No. Back a touch. I don't know. There. Yes. There.'
Adam stripped off his shirt and slung it over the nearest branch. Looking deep into the woods, he set his sights on a distant tree in direct line with the statue and his shirt. He kept his eyes tightly fixed on the tree as he pushed his way through the overgrown laurel. It was a struggle, like walking against the current in a lively river.
When he reached the tree, he turned. He could just make out his shirt hanging from the branch.
He had to be exact, which meant removing his trousers and hanging them from a branch. When he slipped his shoes back on he noticed that his ankle had already started to swell.
Singling out another tree that lay along the same axis, he set off through the laurel. The tight-packed bushes clawed at him, grazing his bare skin. Once or twice he received a sharp jab in the thigh or midriff, enough to stop him momentarily in his tracks, but he didn't take his eyes off the tree until he reached it.
Fortunately, he wasn't required to remove his underpants as another marker; the next tree was close enough to the border of the wood for him to judge the rest of the journey by eye.
He turned and gave one final check that he was still on target with Flora's line of sight, and then he stepped into the open.
He was at the northern fringes of the glade of Hyacinth, and there—directly in his path—stood Apollo atop his high, conical mountain, his arm outstretched toward Hyacinth, prostrate on his plinth on the other side of the clearing.
It came to him suddenly, setting his pulse racing.
Apollo was the key that unlocked the mystery.
He closed his eyes and hurried around the garden in his head,
each element of Federico Docci's design unraveling, taking on new meaning, telling another story, one buried just beneath the surface.
A couple of sharp expletives brought him to his senses. It was Harry emerging from the wood, barging through the laurel, holding his wineglass aloft. Impressively, he seemed to have spilled barely a drop.
Harry's gaze roamed the glade before coming to rest on Adam. 'Jesus, Adam, look at you, standing there in your underpants and your shoes, all scratched to fuck. Is this where a Cambridge education gets you?'
'You sound like Dad.'
'I'm beginning to understand how he feels.'
Adam seized Harry and hugged him close. 'You're a genius, Harry.'
Harry patted his back and said, 'There, there, the nice men in the white coats will be here soon.'
Adam laughed and released him. 'It's not a memorial garden.'
'No?'
'Or rather, it is.' 'Right.'
'Only, it isn't.'
'Okay, now I'm really quite worried.'
'It's both. It's a memorial garden
'A confession?'
'To murder. He killed her. Federico killed her.'
'Who?'
'Flora.'
'Not her—him. Who the fuck is Federico?'
'Her husband. He killed her because she was having an affair.'
Harry took a sip of wine and nodded sagely. 'Seems a little . . . excessive.'
Harry wasn't too happy about being dispatched into the wood to recover Adam's trousers, but he perked up a bit when they arrived back at the amphitheater and Adam pointed out the anagram on the triumphal arch and the nine circles of Dante's
