The Lost Labyrinth

II

'What the hell are you talking about?' demanded Knox angrily. 'There's no way on earth Augustin killed Petitier.'

Nico held up a palm. 'You misunderstand,' he said. 'I'm not suggesting he did. All I'm saying is that the police might be able to establish a motive.' He shifted even further around in his seat, as far as his bulk would allow, squeezed between the door and the hand-brake. 'Do you know why I offered Petitier the chance to give a talk?'

'No.'

'I was originally planning to take that slot myself, but I stood aside for him. I didn't do that lightly, I assure you. I like to talk.' He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. 'It's one of the reasons I organise these conferences, frankly, because no one else ever invites me. But I had a good reason to stand aside this time. You see, Petitier emailed me six weeks or so ago, demanding I let him address the conference. Very abrasive, very arrogant. I hardly even remembered him, though he used to be quite close to one of my colleagues at the university.'

'And?'

'I thanked him for his interest, but told him I'd already filled all the speaking slots. Which was true, of course; these things get finalised months in advance. I said he was welcome to speak at one of our roundtables. He insisted that wasn't good enough and assured me it would be worth my while, that he had something extraordinary to share with the world. I asked him what; he refused to say. I assumed I'd hear no more. You always get these cranks hanging around conferences, convinced they've solved all the riddles of the ancient world. But then a package arrived at my office. A note from Petitier, along with ten Linear A and Linear B seal and seal-stone fragments wrapped in cotton wool. They're not my specialty at all, so I took photos and emailed them around: because if these fragments were already in the public record, one or other of my colleagues would have been bound to recognise them. But none did. So it looked as though Petitier had at the very least found some new seals, and thus very probably an important new site too.'

'Even so,' said Knox. 'That scarcely merits a platform at a conference like this.'

'No,' agreed Nico. 'But there was something else. It slipped past me, because I'm no language expert. But one of my colleagues picked up on it at once. You see, while none of the Linear A seals were decipherable, two of the Linear B seals were. Or, at least, one word on each of them was.'

'And?'

'The first word is "gold" or "golden".'

'And the second?'

A somewhat sheepish look spread across Nico's face. 'It means "fleece",' he said.