Mortuus Virgo

‘Packing, why?’

‘I have booked you on a flight out of Athens tomorrow afternoon,’ he said. ‘The ferry leaves Samothrace at eight am and your flight to London is at four. As pleasant as this has been, we still cannot allow an armed man with a grudge to wander the streets of Samothrace. I am sure you understand. Enjoy your last night in Greece Mr Walker, goodbye.’

The guard opened the door and Brandon left quickly, constantly looking over his shoulder as he tried to find a taxi.

‘What do you think?’ asked the guard back in the hotel room.

‘Two things,’ answered the officer. ‘One is that he is definitely SAS and the second is he knows more than he is letting on. Give him space but have him followed. He may yet tell us what we want to know.’

‘Yes sir,’ said the thug and left the room.

‘Brandon, thank god!’ said India when he finally returned to the room. She walked forward to embrace him but he brushed past her and went to the window, pulling the curtain aside to peer into the street.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Have you finished packing?’ he asked.

‘Not yet,’ she said, but why the rush? That policeman said we can go tomorrow.’

‘He was no more policeman than I am,’ said Brandon. ‘All that bullshit about drugs was bollocks. There’s something else going on here. I don’t know what it is yet, but there is no way I am going to sit back and wait for things to happen.’

‘What’s brought this on?’ she asked, ‘He seemed really nice.’

Brandon started to put the few things he had into his rucksack.

‘First of all he knew who I was and what I do. Secondly, he has an entourage of armed thugs surrounding him. And thirdly, did you catch his name?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said, ‘Why.’

He threw the business card the officer had given him on the table. India picked it up and read the name.

‘Gatilusi,’ she read.

‘Ring any bells?’ asked Brandon.

She stared at him, her mind turning over as she searched her memory.

‘Hang on,’ she said, ‘Weren’t they the family that Agatha told us about? The one’s who ran this island for a couple of hundred years.’

‘That’s right, he said, The last great ruling family until they were ousted by the Ottomans.’

‘The family Peter Venezelos’s gang were named after?’

‘Yup! and they used the family’s eagle as an emblem.’

‘Aetosh,’ she said.

‘Aetosh,’ he confirmed.

‘May be a coincidence?’ she ventured.

‘Too many links to be a coincidence,’ he answered. ‘The guy who tried to kill us was in a gang called the Aetosh. Now we get warned off by someone who is probably a descendant of the original family.’

‘So where are we going?’

‘I don’t know yet, I just want to get away from here. I don’t trust him. He reckons Peter Venezelos is some small time drug dealer but I’m not so sure.’

India got up to get herself a glass of water.

‘What else did he say?’ she asked over her shoulder.

‘Not much,’ said Brandon, ‘Though he did ask me a strange question. He wanted to know about the London Palladium, of all things.’

The sound of a breaking glass came from behind him and he span around. India was staring at him, the remains of the glass lying at her feet.

‘What did you say?’ she asked.

‘About the drugs?’ he asked

‘No. The Palladium, what did he ask you?’

‘Not much really, just asked what I knew about the London Palladium.’

‘Did he say London Palladium?’ she asked. ‘Think carefully Brandon, What were his exact words? Did he actually say London?

‘Do you know what?’ said Brandon, I don’t think he did. He just said, What do you know about the Palladium? Why, is it important?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘It all makes sense. It’s not the London Palladium,’ he was asking about, but probably the most sought after artefact in the modern world. The statue of Pallas Athena!’

India cleaned up the mess and they sat on the settee as she explained.

‘If you recall,’ said India, ‘I told you the story of the statue of Pallas being taken to Samothrace by Electra, and ultimately ending up in Troy.’

‘Yes, but what has that to do with the Palladium?’

‘That’s just it,’ she said, ‘The statue is the Palladium. During it’s time in Troy, the statue became known as the Palladium and for over a thousand years, it was said that as long as the Palladium stayed at it’s heart, the city would never fall. Obviously it became famous across the region, and, throughout history many cities across the world adopted their own versions of the Palladium. Even the American constitution has been called the Palladium of America. The London Palladium is just a building named after the most important icon any city could ever have. Very clever thinking by whomever thought up the name, don’t you think?’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Brandon, ‘You said the statue of Pallus is the Palladium. Don’t you mean was?’

‘I know exactly what I said, Brandon,’ said India, ‘I said is, because many scholars believe it is still in existence. Rumours abound right across the world of archaeology that it still survives, even after thousands of years. ‘

‘How on earth can they be so sure?’ he asked. ‘Surely it would have rotted by now.’

‘Not necessarily,’ said India, ‘It depends on what it is made of. Some wood is as hard as iron. Ebony, Teak, Lignum Vitae, the list is endless. If the statue was made from any of these and it was kept out of the weather it could last indefinitely. Archaeologists have found artefacts made of wood, hundreds of thousands of years old.’

‘I thought it was stolen from Troy before the city fell.’

‘It was, and for a long time no-one knew where it was, but, around eight hundred BC, it reappeared in Rome, around about the time the city was starting to make a name for itself. Stories vary about who brought it there and we will probably never know but the fact is, like Troy, Rome was built around the Palladium.’

‘Where is it now?’

‘Well, that’s the thing. History says it stayed there until Emperor Constantine buried it under the tower in Constantinople. But why would Gatilusi be interested in that?’

‘Hang on,’ said Brandon. ‘Let’s take a step back here, I think we’re missing something obvious. The one link throughout all this seems to be the statue, right?’

‘The Palladium,’ corrected India

‘Okay, the Palladium. It appears way back in the beginning of Greek history, it gets taken to Samothrace, then Troy, only to disappear but reappear in Rome a few hundred years later. It disappears again in the third century AD, taken by an emperor who was the founder of the Byzantine empire.’

‘Well, he wasn’t exactly the founder,’ said India, ‘The Byzantine empire was just another name for the eastern provinces, though he did rename Byzantium the new capital of Rome.’

‘Okay,’ said Brandon, ’But here we are, seventeen hundred years later, and the descendant of the last ruling family of a Byzantine castle, is linked with a murderer, who, in turn, may be linked with the Palladium.’ He paused. ‘It’s all very confusing but I’m sure it’s all here. We just need to make some sense of it.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said India. The Gatilusi family were the last great ruling family on Samothrace, right? Imagine if, over the years, their descendants harbour an ancestral grudge and still see themselves as the rightful