The Babylon Idol

Chapter 25

The winding mountain road led them down towards Andritsaina, which was little more than a village nestling on the forested slope. Not wanting the van to be seen in case it drew the wrong kind of attention, Ben found a wooded layby a kilometre outside the town. It wasn’t the perfect hiding place, but it would have to do. He wiped down the steering wheel, door handles and anything else they might have touched, and then they set off on foot, using Ben’s torch to light their way on the dark road.

On a winter’s night the village made Olympia seem like a bustling metropolis by comparison. An icy rain began to fall as they made their way through the narrow, almost deserted streets, looking for somewhere to shelter from the cold and get something to eat.

Anna shivered. The Italian designer coat she was wearing scored high on style but was next to worthless as a winter garment. Her legs must be cold, too. The hems of her lightweight trousers were wet and wrinkled and speckled with mud. ‘Look at me,’ she complained. ‘I look like a vagrant. And I can’t walk another step in these shoes.’

‘I don’t know why you do it,’ he said, frowning down at her feet. ‘I don’t mean you personally. Women, in general. Most of them, at any rate, in my experience, which isn’t vast.’

‘Do what?’

‘You’re a historian. You ought to know that the history of feminine footwear runs right alongside the history of female oppression. Going all the way back to ancient China a thousand years ago, when they invented foot-binding. Like hobbling slaves by chopping off their toes to stop them from escaping, or rebelling. You might as well be wearing barbed-wire slippers.’

‘So shoe design is a male conspiracy?’

‘How many top shoe designers are women?’

‘I don’t know. Some, I would imagine.’

‘Then they should know better. They’re selling you all out.’

‘Women feel the need to be attractive,’ she said with a shrug. ‘That’s why we do it.’

‘You’d look fine in a pair of combat boots.’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Bin the rest of the designer junk while you’re at it, in exchange for something more practical.’

She peered at him, smiling a little. ‘Is that what you go for in women, the butch look?’

‘Whatever works.’

‘Perhaps there’s a military surplus store in this town, where I can buy a whole new outfit.’

‘Unlikely,’ he said.

‘More likely than finding any decent kind of accommodation,’ she replied. ‘This is the kind of place where the hotels open in April and close in October.’

If Ben had been on his own, he’d just as happily have roughed it in the woods with a makeshift bivouac, a fire made of cut branches and a wild rabbit roasting on a skewer for dinner. But Anna Manzini wasn’t someone you could easily take camping. ‘Let’s try there,’ he said, pointing as they rounded a corner and saw a bar that was open for business.

Inside, the place was half-empty but warm and welcoming: part hardcore drinking joint, part fast-food grill house, part family restaurant. The owner was a jovial bear of a man named Kris Christakos, who was proudly fluent in English. ‘You are the first tourists I have seen for months,’ he commented as he brought over a whisky for Ben, red wine for the lady, and took their food order.

Ben explained that they were on their way south towards Messini, but their car had broken down on the mountain road and they’d had to walk all the way here. Was there anywhere in the village they could get a room for the night? Kris beamed and pointed a finger straight up at the ceiling above him. ‘We have a couple of rooms to let upstairs. It’s not much, but it’s better than the mountain. My brother Nick, he drives a taxi and is also a mechanic. In the morning he can take you back to your car and fix it for you.’

‘Sounds good,’ Ben said with a smile and no intention whatsoever of letting anyone connect them with a stolen kidnap van.

While they were waiting for their meal, he took out his phone. ‘Who are you calling?’ Anna asked.

‘Someone you know,’ he replied.

Roberta Ryder and Anna Manzini had met briefly, years earlier, at Anna’s villa in the Languedoc during the Gladius Domini affair. It hadn’t been a comfortable meeting, with Ben caught in the middle of two otherwise highly rational and intellectual women who, for reasons he never could fathom, were potentially ready to start clawing each other’s eyes out over him.

When Roberta’s distant voice came on the line, she didn’t sound any happier. ‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Oh, I’m having a whale of a time out here in sunny Jerkville, Ontario. There’s ten feet of snow outside the window of my shack and I can’t sleep at night because of wolves howling. As long as I don’t run out of firewood to feed my little stove, I’m just peachy. Any idea when I can go back to my life?’

‘Stay tight. I’ll call you again soon.’

‘That was quick,’ Anna commented with a raised eyebrow as he ended the call. Ben didn’t reply. He instantly started punching in another number. When a different female voice answered after two rings, he launched straight in. No greeting, just an urgent ‘How is he?’

‘I’m with him now,’ Sandrine Lacombe said. ‘Still no change. He’s stable, but that’s the best I can say.’

Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Sandrine said, ‘You know the police came here again, looking for you?’

‘Good luck to them,’ Ben said.

‘Where are you?’

‘You don’t want to know,’ he replied. ‘I have to go, Sandrine. Call me if there’s any news about Jeff.’

‘You know I will. Take care, okay? Wherever you are.’

‘It sounds as if there are a lot of women in your life, as ever,’ Anna said with a wry smile as Ben put the phone away. Then, seeing his look, her expression became serious. ‘That was about your friend?’

‘He still hasn’t woken up.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

The food arrived a minute later, served by Kris’s daughter Talia. Ben hadn’t eaten more than a bite since arriving in Greece, and attacked his plate of paidakia, which was essentially just grilled chops with potatoes. Anna contented herself with a salad, most of which she just shunted around her plate, picking at just a couple of morsels until she finally gave up. ‘I can’t eat. I keep thinking about that poor man.’

‘Kambasis?’

‘Such an interesting person,’ she went on, shaking her head, as though the violent sudden death of a less interesting individual could be construed to be a less tragic event. ‘Archaeology was in his bl— was in his family. You know his father, Leonidas Kambasis, was the local Greek archaeologist who assisted with the German-led project to excavate the workshop of Phidias in the fifties?’

‘It’s amazing just how little I know,’ said Ben, still waiting to find out a lot of things.

Anna went on, ‘In fact, people tend to forget that it was actually the Nazis, not the Greek government, who enabled the first really extensive modern excavation of Olympia, starting in 1936, to mark the opening of Hitler’s grand Berlin Olympic Games that year. The Nazi engineers in charge of the excavation project were Emil Kunze and Hans Schleif, who as well as being a classical archaeologist was also an SS Standartenführer. Hitler was passionate about the preservation of the site, regarding his Third Reich as a cultural and aesthetic successor to ancient Greece. The Olympia project became known as the Führergrabung or “Führer excavation”. There was even a special Kunstschutz department within the Wehrmacht responsible for its protection, which issued orders to German soldiers not to urinate on the ruins as it damaged the marble.’

‘Too much schnapps in their bloodstream,’ Ben said. It was just like Anna to dwell over historical detail at a moment like this, and he had to hold back from pushing her onto more important matters.

‘After the war, Emil Kunze returned to oversee the continuing excavations, as though nothing had happened. It was ironic that after three and a half years of Nazi occupation, the execution of a hundred and thirty thousand innocent Greek civilians and the decimation of the population, the Olympia site was completely unscathed.’ Anna shook her head sadly. ‘And even more ironic that it survived all those terrible times, only to be demolished seventy years later because of us.’

‘We didn’t demolish all of it,’ Ben said. ‘Only the bits that were still standing. In another few centuries, who’ll know the difference?’

If Anna sensed the attempt at levity, she didn’t show it. ‘Anyway, you wanted to know why I went to see Kambasis. You were right, Ben. My reason for talking to him was very central to my new research project. Nobody in the world knows more about Phidias than he did, as he inherited his passion for the subject from his father. He was the best person to talk to, in order to find out if it was feasible.’

‘If what was feasible?’ Ben asked, pouring himself a glass of wine.

‘Do you know anything at all about Phidias?’

‘No, but I have a feeling you’re about to enlighten me.’ Ben wanted to add, ‘And I wish you would.’

‘He was a master sculptor who lived and worked in Olympia two and a half thousand years ago, during the fifth century BC. Phidias was renowned for many great works but his most famous creation was a giant gold and ivory statue of Zeus, which became known as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It stood twelve metres in height, a spectacular monument, quite magnificent.’

‘It’s not in the museum,’ Ben said. ‘The ceiling’s not high enough.’

‘It’s not in any museum,’ Anna replied. ‘For a thousand years it remained housed in Olympia’s Temple of Zeus, which as you’ve seen is now completely ruined. Sometime in the fifth century AD, it disappeared from there. Stolen, dismantled, broken up into pieces, nobody knows. What we know of it in modern times comes only from ancient texts and images on old coins. Having inherited his father’s fascination for all things related to Phidias and his works, Theo Kambasis made it his life’s goal to rediscover the statue’s remains, as he was convinced they were still somewhere in the vicinity of the Olympia site. He spent much of his time there, searching for clues, and wrote numerous papers and articles on the subject. That was how I came to learn about him, and why I wanted to talk to him in person.’

Ben was beginning to understand, or at least he was trying to. Chewing a mouthful of paidakia, he said, ‘So that’s what this big new research project is — you’re looking for the statue of Zeus?’

Anna shook her head. ‘No, that’s not my interest.’

‘Then what?’

‘As I said, what I wanted to discover from Theo Kambasis was whether or not the technology truly existed in the fifth century BC to create an enormous golden statue of that kind. How feasible was it back then, with the facilities available, to create an object so huge out of precious metals?’

Anna shoved her unfinished plate out of the way and leaned eagerly across the table with her hair falling across her face, looking at Ben with a sparkle in her dark brown, almond-shaped eyes. ‘You see, before I went any further with this, I needed to know whether the story could be true or not. Now, together with the evidence I’ve already collated, what Theo Kambasis told me has got me convinced.’

‘Convinced about what?’ Ben said, now thoroughly confused. ‘What evidence? What story?’

‘The story of the biggest, most legendary, most fabulous golden statue in all of history,’ Anna replied, spreading her arms wide with a flourish. ‘That’s what I’ve been working on for my new book, and I’m certain it exists.’