great-grandmother’s bracelet. That a couple of weeks ago you were living it up on a Greek island. You know what I think? I think you know a hell of a lot more than you’re pretending.’
She struggled against his grip. ‘Let me go!’
He shook her. ‘No chance, Zoe. For once in your life, you’re going to tell the truth.’
Chapter Forty-Six
Zoe broke away from him and crawled out of the shelter. Ben followed her, grabbing for her ankle. She kicked back at him, and caught his injured shoulder. He cried out and collapsed in the dirt as she scrabbled out and made a run for it. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he yelled after her.
Zoe ran through the trees, swiping branches out of her way.
Then she stopped and screamed. A figure stepped out from the bushes.
It was Alex, hot and red-faced from her long hike. Her hair was messed up and full of leaves, and her jeans were soaked to the thigh from where she’d been wading through water. ‘Zoe? Where are you off to?’
Ben caught up with them, panting and clutching his shoulder. His eyes blazed as he saw Zoe. ‘Right, you little fucker. You’re going to talk.’
Alex stood there looking bewildered. ‘What’s going on here? I just came back to tell you good news. There’s a farm up over the ridge, about two miles away.’
‘What’s going on is that this one’s got her memory back,’ Ben said. ‘She’s been holding out on us.’
Zoe burst into tears and fell to her knees in the dust.
Alex stared in disbelief. ‘Is this true?’
‘Come on, let’s have it,’ Ben said. ‘Where’s the ostraka? What’s this all about? What do Jones and Slater want with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Zoe sobbed.
‘You won’t leave here until you tell us the truth,’ Ben said.
‘I mean it!’ she screamed up at him. ‘I don’t know what they want it for. I was only using it to blackmail Cleaver!’
‘Then tell me where it is,’ Ben said, trying hard to curb the fury in his voice. ‘Then maybe we can get out of this. We can use it against them.’
Zoe was shaking her head violently, her face streaked with tears and dust. ‘I can’t tell you where it is,’ she sobbed.
‘Why not?’ he demanded.
‘Because… because… I can’t say it.’ She burst into tears again, and raked her face with trembling fingers.
Alex stepped over to her and took her arm. ‘Don’t be afraid. We’re trying to help. Tell us. Then we can all cross over to the farm. It’ll be over soon.’
Zoe wiped her eyes and glanced up at Ben with a look of fear. She sniffed, hung her head.
‘Well?’ Ben asked.
‘I can’t tell you because… it doesn’t exist.’ Her shoulders sagged. ‘There. I’ve said it. Happy now?’
Ben was stunned into silence for a few seconds. ‘What?’ he said quietly.
Zoe sat up, her feet planted apart in the dirt. ‘It was all a bluff,’ she whispered. ‘It was all lies, all right? There is no evidence. I made the whole thing up.’
Ben was struggling to make sense of what she was saying. ‘But the fragment you sent Cleaver, that you got Skid McClusky to take him in the box. It was for real. Cleaver had it verified.’
Zoe shook her head tearfully. ‘He had it radiocarbon dated, that’s all. The fragment was the right age. Why do you think I chose it? But the inscription on it was meaningless. Nobody could have verified that. I only found a few shards. For all I know it was some ancient Hebrew recipe book or an accounts sheet. There wasn’t enough left to make sense of.’
Ben stared at her, his rage mounting. The pain in his shoulder was gone. ‘A recipe book,’ he echoed.
‘I wasn’t even sure Cleaver would fall for it,’ she blurted. ‘It was just a crazy idea I had one day on the Turkish dig. I didn’t have to work out the details because I knew I could bluff it. I thought it would be a way to get back at the bastard, shake him up a bit. That stupid book. Who’s he trying to kid?’ She reddened. ‘And why should he get all Augusta’s money? She was my friend first. I should be the one to have it.’
‘And this is the truth?’ Ben said. ‘There never was any evidence about St John and Revelation?’
‘If there is,’ Zoe sniffed, ‘it’s still buried in the sand somewhere.’
Ben started shaking as it sank in. He thought of Charlie. In his mind he was replaying the moment when his friend had been blown to pieces. ‘I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I told you about the people whose lives have been destroyed thanks to your little scheme,’ he said. ‘Never mind your family are going crazy with worry. Nikos is dead. Did you know that? Do you even care?’ The pain was returning now, like a piece of molten steel in his flesh.
Zoe glanced up at him in alarm, then screwed her eyes shut and said nothing.
‘Not to mention the victims of a bombing in Corfu that you don’t even know about,’ he said. ‘But which you caused. And the doctor who risked his life to help you, and died trying. And your friend Skid McClusky, hiding in a dingy motel with his legs smashed. All of it thanks to you, you stupid little twit.’ He was getting breathless with pain. He fought the urge to grab a fistful of her hair and smash her face in. ‘I’ve always treated women just the same way as men. But if you were a man, Zoe, I swear this would be your last day. You have no idea what you’ve done.’
There was a long silence, the only sound Zoe’s quiet sobbing, the rustling of the leaves in the breeze and the call of a buzzard somewhere high overhead.
Alex was the one to break the silence. ‘So where does this leave us?’
Nobody replied.
Nausea came over Ben like fever. He felt something tap his foot, and looked down. His left hand was slick with blood, fingertips dripping fat splodges onto the forest floor. Alex saw it too, and her eyes flashed worry.
Then came the steady thump of rotor blades in the distance. Ben looked up. The chopper was just a dot on the sky, but it was getting rapidly bigger.
‘Company,’ Alex muttered.
‘Under cover,’ he said. ‘Now.’ He grabbed Zoe’s arm and hauled her roughly off her feet, sending her tumbling into the bushes. Alex ducked in after her, and Ben squatted close by. He could smell Alex’s hair, her hot skin. Even in his pain, there was a strange tingle from the feeling of closeness.
The chopper approached, its thudding roar filling the air. Then it swooped over the wooded valley, shaking the trees, and was gone.
Alex let out a long breath. ‘You think they found the car?’
Ben shook his head. ‘They’re combing the whole area. That’s what I’d do. Jones must have called on every resource he could muster up.’ He got to his feet, listening to the fading thud of the chopper. ‘Time to move on.’
Chapter Forty-Seven
The long, weary two miles felt like they were Ben’s last. He could feel his strength ebbing away with every step. Alex led the way, carrying his bag, stopping frequently to help him across the difficult terrain. Zoe followed silently, thirty yards behind, her face pale, avoiding Ben’s eye as they threaded their way through the pine trees and down a long rocky slope to a river.
‘We have to cross,’ Alex said. ‘The water’s fast-flowing but it’s not deep.’ She took his hand and they waded out. He stumbled and fell, and the impact of the icy water made his body spasm with chills. Alex helped him stagger to his feet. ‘Just a little further,’ she said, and tried to smile reassuringly.
He gritted his teeth and fought back the dizziness. One step at a time, he made his way across the river and
