‘He was always very fond of your dad,’ Dillen said, picking up his pipe again. ‘I first took Jack to see Hugh when he wasn’t very much older than you are now.’
‘Well, then,’ Rebecca said, suddenly businesslike, looking at Jack. ‘Professor Dillen and I both have to fly back to London tomorrow, right? He’s got a conference at the end of the week, and I’ve got my school trip to France. We’ve both got tomorrow afternoon free. Why don’t we take a trip to Bristol? I’ve been there, to the university open day. I might even study there, actually. You don’t know that yet. Now you do. It’s only an hour and a half on the train from London.’
Dillen sucked thoughtfully on his pipe, smiled to himself, looked at Jack and raised an eyebrow. Jack glanced at Rebecca, then nodded. ‘It seems that when my daughter sets her mind on something, she does it.’
Dillen pointed his pipe. ‘What was it you just said about Hugh? “Not the only one”?’
Jack smiled, looking serious. ‘If there’s a chance this story’s true, then it’s part of the archaeology of this place. We should try to chase it up. But only if Hugh wants us to.’
‘I think he will. And we don’t need to pussyfoot around him. For all the trauma, chaps like Hugh are also tough as nails. Remember what they’ve seen and done and had to live with. He’ll tell us exactly what he wants to tell us.’
‘Mission Creep, yet again,’ Costas sighed. ‘We need to keep focused. On the archaeology. On the diving.’
‘We need to keep all possible avenues open,’ Jack said.
‘I just want to talk to him,’ Rebecca said quietly. ‘Maybe about Peter, if he wants.’
‘I’ll have a word with Ben, who’s personally taken charge of security for this project,’ Jack said. ‘He and Macalister have just liaised with the Turkish navy to get a demolitions team in tomorrow morning to clear that mine from the wreck. Once they’re done, we’re good to go with another dive, Costas. I want to shore up the minelayer wreck and begin doing airlift excavation on the ancient hull straight away. If you can get the Aquapods up to scratch, we’ll be in the water tomorrow afternoon. With the Turkish navy around, I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about with the security of Seaquest II. I think we can spare Ben or one of his guys to accompany you, Rebecca.’
‘Dad.’ Rebecca looked at Jack defiantly. ‘It’s not like I’m a little girl any more. I’m seventeen. I don’t need a chaperone.’
Jack paused. ‘Remember Ben’s reaction when you marched off alone to organize the repatriation of a work of art stolen by the Nazis? There are a lot of shady characters out there. Art and antiquities are big business on the black market.’
‘Dad. I’m going to see a lonely old man in a flat in Bristol. And James will be with me.’
Jack looked at her, shaking his head, then at Dillen. ‘We’ll talk about it.’
‘Good. That’s a yes, then. We’re going. Thanks, Dad. And I’ll look after Professor Dillen, don’t worry.’
Hiebermeyer came out of the excavation room carrying a large perspex board with a plan of Troy taped to it. He was still streaked with dirt, and his eyes were gleaming with excitement.
‘You got a result?’ Jack asked.
‘Better than you could have imagined. Wundervoll.’ He turned to the others. ‘When Jack and I nipped back to that sculpture during dinner, it was because I wanted to take photographs. I e-mailed them through to the institute in Alexandria. I’ve got a brilliant student there who specializes in Egyptian New Kingdom portrait sculpture. She can spot an individual sculptor’s hand. She knew this one immediately. She calls him Seth IV. She knows him from Thebes. It’s incredibly exciting, because three of his four other known sculptures show officials of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the later thirteenth century BC. And the fourth is even better. It’s a recently revealed statue of Usermaatre-setpenre, otherwise known as Rameses the Great, died 1213
BC.’
‘ Perfect,’ Jeremy exclaimed. ‘Priam would have been about contemporary with Rameses, wouldn’t he? So this sculptor, Seth IV, takes a commission to sculpt the greatest king of Troy, and comes up here with his stone. That clinches it for me.’
‘We’ll do a laser scan and compare the data from the other statues. It’s like fingerprint analysis. But she can tell by eye. You can completely trust it.’
‘Another small step closer to the Trojan War,’ Dillen murmured, shaking his head. ‘I never thought I’d see anything like this in my lifetime.’
Jack pointed at the board. ‘What have you got there?’
Hiebermeyer put it on the ground between them and knelt in front. ‘Look at this. We’ve dug out enough of the passageway walls to project the walls inward to their apex. I’m convinced it’ll be a circular chamber or a tomb.’ He stabbed a finger at the centre of the plan. ‘I’m putting the ground-penetrating radar over that spot first thing tomorrow morning. And I’ve worked out what we need to get through the remaining rubble. I’ve got a crack team coming up from the institute in Egypt. Experienced at digging out pyramids, monumental tombs. Real archaeologists. And Aysha’s coming. She’s my top hieroglyphics expert.’
‘You mean she’s your wife,’ Rebecca said.
‘This is science, Rebecca. Science. I’m talking about assembling the best possible archaeological team. Period.’
‘Dad says archaeology isn’t a science. He says it’s all about emotional understanding of the past. About passion. About your own passion, Maurice. Aysha tells me she really wants children. This would be the perfect place to get serious, don’t you think? Professor Dillen and I will be away. You’ve got the excavation house to yourselves. Jeremy can go and camp with his sleeping bag up on the ruins, can’t you, Jeremy? What about it, Hiemy?’
Hiebermeyer was silent for a moment, apparently absorbed in the plan. Then he looked up, narrowing his eyes at Rebecca. ‘Here’s what Hiemy thinks. You remember how Hiemy offered Rebecca the job of site assistant at the mummy necropolis next summer? Hiemy thinks that if Rebecca’s excellent plan comes to fruition, that job brief might just change. It might change to nanny.’
Rebecca looked aghast. ‘ Not,’ she said vehemently.
Jack bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. He cleared his throat, and turned to Hiebermeyer. ‘Hieroglyphics,’ he murmured, shaking his head doubtfully. ‘Is that really what you saw down there in that tunnel, Maurice?’
Hiebermeyer gave him a defiant look. ‘Did you really see the lion-shaped prow of a Mycenaean galley on the sea bed this afternoon?’
Rebecca looked at Dillen. ‘Dad has a bet with Maurice that he’s going to find the Shield of Achilles before Maurice finds the palladion.’
‘An extra team from Egypt,’ Jack murmured, scratching his stubble. ‘That sounds like an unfair advantage. That raises the stakes. It’s a crate of whisky, not a bottle. And James chooses the malt. It’s for him, after all.’
‘Done,’ Hiebermeyer said.
Costas stood up, spun his spanner, checked his watch and looked at Jeremy. ‘That reminds me. I’ve got an Aquapod to fix. The chopper’s waiting. Want to come and help?’
‘Thought you’d never ask.’
Dillen stood up as well. ‘And I need to go back to my trench. To clean up.’
Hiebermeyer wiped his face, leaving a streak like war paint across his forehead. He looked at Dillen seriously. ‘Of course you do, Professor.’ He grinned. ‘Inspection in half an hour.’
9
J ames Dillen walked down from the excavation house to the dirt lane that encircled the site of Troy, on the edge of the rich humic plain that seemed to lap the ancient citadel like a sea. There were plain that seemed to lap the ancient citadel like a sea. There were tomatoes everywhere, rows of lush plants in the fields, ripe red fruit dropped from carts and squashed on the trackway, oozing into the stagnant pools that lined the fields. He
