The Orpheus Descent (13 page)

Ruth led him out through a side door. ‘We’ll wait a few minutes to see if anyone else shows up.’

‘I thought there’d be more,’ Jonah said.

‘You know how it is.’

She looked as though she was about to say something else, but bit it back. Jonah could guess. Lily’s case wasn’t juicy enough or bloody enough to attract the feeding frenzy. The ones who’d come today were just outriders, sniffing around on the off-chance.

Ruth ushered him into a waiting room. A potted plant, a water cooler, a few blue chairs – and Lily’s mother and sister sitting in a corner. Her mother wore a grey skirt and a pink cardigan, as if she’d taken a wrong turn on the way to church; her face looked small and grey. Julie was wearing a blue jersey dress that came down to her knees, revealing tanned legs and slim, firm arms. Her dark hair was pulled back in a functional ponytail. She looked so unlike Lily that lots of people, Jonah included, wondered if they’d had different fathers. He’d never asked. The father, whoever he was, had never been around to answer.

He leaned in and gave her mother an awkward hug. She was so thin he worried he might snap her. She hadn’t been the same since the fall two years ago: the light inside her had gone out. And now this.

‘You poor thing,’ she murmured.

‘It’s good of you to come.’

‘We came down this morning,’ Julie said. ‘You haven’t heard anything?’

He shook his head. ‘You?’

‘Nothing. I’d have thought she’d have called to check in on Mum. Even if you …’

She caught herself. Jonah felt his chest tighten.

‘We were fine.’

Her mother looked up. ‘She’ll come back. Or at least let us know.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Julie. ‘There’s something—’

She broke off. Ruth had popped her head in. ‘Let’s get this over with.’

She led them back into the conference room. Jonah didn’t count any more reporters than before. A couple of the photographers held up their cameras for pictures; the rest just looked bored. Jonah felt the anger rising inside him and tried to force it back. It only increased the pressure.

They took their seats and Ruth leaned in to the microphone. ‘Thanks for coming. As you know, Lily Barnes went missing in Italy on Friday. Her husband is going to read a short statement, and then we’ll take questions.’

She turned the microphone towards Jonah. He took the creased paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, squinting at the words. It was the hardest thing he’d ever written, and he dreaded having to read it out. Most nights, for the past six weeks, he’d performed in front of hundreds – sometimes thousands – of people. These were half a dozen bored journalists in a shabby police station. But there was no song that would make these words sound right. He was telling the world that Lily was gone. Making it public was like opening a door, letting out all the terrible possibilities he’d bottled up inside himself and giving them life.

‘My wife Lily …’

‘Could you speak up, please?’ called one of the journalists.

The room was too hot; his mouth was dry. He cleared his throat and took a drink from the glass of water in front of him. ‘Sorry.’ He just wanted this to be over. ‘My wife Lily …’

He paused. A uniformed officer had come through the side door and was whispering something in Ruth’s ear. Ruth nodded, and put a hand over Jonah’s microphone.

‘Hold on a sec.’

They went out into the corridor. Jonah watched them through the window in the door but couldn’t hear a thing. In front of him, the journalists had started to look interested. One took out his notepad and started scribbling, glancing up every few seconds at Jonah. Was he writing about him? Jonah felt another rush of anger. This was supposed to be about Lily.

The door opened. Ruth came in but didn’t sit down.

‘I’m afraid this conference is cancelled,’ she announced.

The journalists started to grumble, but Ruth stared them down with the sort of look they probably taught in the first week of police school. Jonah just gazed at her, echoing the question that several of the reporters had shot back.

‘Why?’

Ruth half turned towards Jonah and Lily’s family. ‘They’ve found her.’ And then, seeing the journalists’ noses twitch, added, ‘She’s fine.’

Ruth took them back into the waiting room, leaving the journalists to pack up. A couple shot Jonah looks as he went out, as if they blamed him for spoiling their fun. He didn’t care. He balled up the statement and threw it in the bin, dizzy with the relief flooding his system.

But there was so much he needed to know. ‘Where is she? Is she OK?’

‘She’s well,’ Ruth said.

‘How did they find her?’ Julie asked.

‘The Italian police spoke to her on her mobile. I don’t have details yet – they just rang through. They’ll send a full report later. But she’s fine.’

‘
They spoke to her on her mobile?
’ He must have rung it a hundred times in the last three days and it had never been switched on. The relief suddenly wasn’t flowing quite as hard as it had.

‘When’s she coming back?’ said Lily’s mother.

‘I don’t know.’ Ruth smiled – but behind her brisk manner, there was something evasive. Something she was keeping from him.

‘Where is she?’ Jonah said again.

Ruth squared her shoulders, bracing herself. She looked Jonah dead in the eye.

‘She asked them to keep that confidential.’

Jonah went cold. This couldn’t be right.

‘She told the police she’s sorry about worrying you all with the story about her mother, and causing all this fuss. She didn’t know what to say. She needed some time to herself.’

‘Can I speak to her?’

‘I don’t know what happened between her and yourself, but that’s between you two. This isn’t a matter for the police any more.’

She was moving, shepherding them down the corridor towards the front door. Jonah wanted to stand his ground, to stay there until he got answers, but he had to follow her to be heard.

‘How did they know it was Lily? It could have been anyone using her phone. Did they actually go and see her? Did they trace her phone?’

‘It’ll all be in the report,’ said Ruth. Too late, he realised she’d managed to get him through the big double doors into the reception area.

Something like pity creased her face. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out this way.’

Find out?
Everyone was acting as if something had been settled, but in Jonah’s world there were only more questions. Why couldn’t they see it? Why weren’t they as desperate to know as he was?

Julie took his arm and pulled him out onto the street. Her mother was already down there, leaning on the metal rail that separated her from the traffic crawling down towards the gyratory.

‘Did you have a fight?’ Julie asked.

‘I didn’t even see her.’ He tried to play back every conversation, every message and e-mail they’d exchanged in the last six weeks. ‘We didn’t argue about anything. We just wanted to be back together.’

He could see she didn’t believe him. ‘Everyone argues – just ask my Rob. She’ll come round.’

‘There was nothing,’ he insisted.

‘Go home and get some rest. And don’t call unless you’ve got good news. You’ve worried Mum enough.’

She left him standing on the steps as she headed for the taxi rank outside the shopping centre. A moment later, she looked back and fumbled in her bag. ‘I almost forgot. This arrived this morning.’

She came back and gave him a white cardboard envelope covered in courier’s stickers. Jonah’s heart jolted as he saw the address on the front: Lily’s writing, sent to Julie.

The date on the sticker was Friday. She must have sent it just before she disappeared. Hand trembling, he slid out two pieces of paper. The top sheet had a brief note:
Can you look after this until I get back?
Underneath, the second sheet was covered in writing: strange, angular letters that looked like a child’s. It took Jonah a moment to realise it wasn’t English, another moment to realise it wasn’t even the normal alphabet. Greek, maybe?

‘I suppose it’s something to do with her work,’ said Julie. ‘You keep it. She might want it when she comes back.’

If she comes back.
He tried not to think it, but the cruel voice inside him slipped through his defences.

He checked his phone but there were no messages. He tried Lily’s mobile again, but it was switched off. Of course. At the bottom of the hill, traffic crawled in circles around the Wandsworth gyratory. Jonah watched them go round and wondered if that would be the rest of his life.

Unless … He looked at the paper Julie had given him again – dead words in a dead language – and wondered if they could bring Lily back.

My first impressions of Italy disgusted me. I despised the sort of life which they called the life of happiness, stuffed full with the banquets of the Italian Greeks and Syracusans, who ate to bursting twice a day, and never went to bed alone.

Plato,
Letter VII

‘Actually, I can answer your question perfectly well.’ Dimos dunked his bread in wine, then sucked until there was nothing left but the crust. ‘Is Dionysius a good thing for Syracuse? Absolutely. The city needs a strong hand, or Sicily will be overrun by Carthaginians.’

His own strong hand reached for a peach, squeezing so hard the skin split. Nectar oozed between his fingers.

‘But Dionysius has forgotten who he’s supposed to be fighting. He’s like a man who picks his wife, only to discover that he prefers her sister, and then the sister’s cousin, and then the cousin’s son …’ He made a gesture with his dripping fingers. ‘He’s insatiable.’

‘Show me a tyrant who isn’t,’ I muttered through my breakfast.

‘Has Dionysius invaded the mainland?’ Euphemus asked.

‘Two years ago we formed a coalition, Thurii and the other cities, to resist him. It was a disaster. We fought two battles, and both times he routed us. Total embarrassment. And Dionysius behaved impeccably. He let our men retreat in good order, ransomed the prisoners and offered peace with dignity. That’s the mark of greatness.’

He sounded almost proud, as if by going down to defeat they’d somehow earned a share of the glory. I’ve never fought on a battlefield, but I saw the corpses stacked in the agora when my uncle and his friends took charge. Dead eyes, denied any future. The mark of greatness.

Dimos was still talking. ‘There are plenty of sensible men who think we could do with a dose of strong leadership here in Thurii.’

Euphemus fastidiously peeled his own peach. ‘A homegrown tyrant? Or would you invite in Dionysius himself?’

‘There’s no denying we’d benefit from a leader who could do the right thing. Not just talking around everything in the Assembly all day, getting nowhere.’

I was in a disagreeable mood. My stepbrother has that effect on me – plus I had a runny nose from the storm the day before, and I’d slept badly.

‘Do you think a tyrant always does the right thing?’

It was the first thing I’d said that he’d noticed. The question surprised him. ‘Some do, some don’t. I’m saying, at least they have the freedom to do the right thing.’

‘Tyrants aren’t free.’

‘They do whatever they please.’

‘They’re slaves to their appetites.’

‘But they have the power to satisfy them.’ Euphemus spoke lightly, trying to take the heat out of the conversation.

‘Any immoderate desire is tyrannical,’ I persisted. ‘You’re a slave to it. Lust, for example.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or gluttony.’

‘Yes.’

‘And every drunkard turns into a tyrant.’

Dimos smiled. For most people, a smile shows their face at its best. With Dimos, it was an ugly thing.

‘If that’s true, we’ll all be tyrants tonight.’

I didn’t understand.

‘I’m throwing a dinner party.’

I spent the day wandering around Thurii, asking about Agathon. Thurii’s a modern town, like the Piraeus, with straight streets and paint still fresh on the temples. You could almost believe there’s no history at all – until you remember the drowned Sybarites slowly mouldering under its foundations.

Nobody had seen Agathon since he left a month ago. At least they didn’t seem to think he’d committed any crime. I came home after lunch, napped, and then dressed for dinner. The first guests arrived just before sunset.

In Athens, the chief business of a dinner party is drinking. The meal is simply a foundation to give the evening some ballast. In Italy, they take the eating much more seriously. We had songbirds and gamebirds, five kinds of fish and three of eel, peppers stuffed with raisins and sweet almond cakes baked in the shape of the goddess. Well before the others finished, my stomach had bloated like a corpse. Euphemus, two couches away and in his element, couldn’t resist teasing me.

‘Not hungry?’

‘It’s too much.’

‘I don’t know why you bothered coming to Italy, if you’re just going to leave all your food on the table.’

The men around us laughed. The man sharing my couch, a merchant, reached around and jabbed me in the ribs.

‘You Athenians need feeding up.’

He was fat as an ass, and put away every plate that came near him. I faked a smile and replied to Euphemus.

‘Do you have to embarrass yourself, showing our hosts how greedy you are?’

‘I’m not greedy: you’re just a prig.’

‘You eat like a Pythagorean,’ the merchant told me. Hilarity ensued.

‘Don’t,’ said Euphemus. ‘He’s already obsessed with triangles.’

Dimos found a wedge of bread and offered it to me. ‘Perhaps this would be more to your taste.’

‘Just don’t serve him lentils.’

‘If he farts too much it’ll break his concentration.’

‘He’ll come back as a flea.’

I hated them, but Euphemus most of all. I lay on my couch, trapped by the man in front of me, and soaked up the insults. Looking back, I don’t suppose they wanted to be cruel. They expected me to join in. They kept tossing stones because they thought I’d find a stick and hit them back. That was what passed for entertainment in their lives.

Eventually, they got bored and moved on to the drinking. Slaves came and cleared the tables, then washed our hands and feet and crowned us with wreathes of myrtle and rose. We offered libations, sang a hymn to the goddess, and performed the usual ceremonies. I mumbled along as best I could, unfamiliar prayers to unfamiliar gods. In Athens, we honour Athena and Zeus: cold wisdom, hard power. In Italy, they prefer Demeter and her daughter: ripe, soft and susceptible. Their mysteries yield to the touch like the petals of a flower, deeper and deeper until you lose yourself in the darkness.