The Lost Labyrinth

TWENTY-SIX
I

Franklin led Knox through to a dimly-lit front room with huge unframed expressionist canvases on the walls. He went to a drinks cabinet and poured himself a clouded shot-glass of firewater that he knocked straight back and refilled. 'My wife doesn't like me drinking in public,' he confided. 'I have a bad habit of not knowing when to stop, and then saying things to embarrass myself.' He turned to Knox with a meaningful look. 'She hates embarrassment, my wife, more than anything in the world. So I do all I can to avoid it: because I love her.'

'I understand.'

He found and filled a second glass that he handed to Knox. 'Do you smoke?' he asked, opening a silver case filled with cheroots.

'No, thanks.'

'You don't mind if I do?'

'Of course not.'

They sat in a pair of armchairs set obliquely near the front window, through which they could watch the few cars that passed, the occasional pedestrian. Franklin lit his cheroot; it gave off an aromatic smoke. 'I apologise for not mentioning that article earlier; you must understand that I gave my word I'd never talk about it again.'

'To your wife?'

'In part. But more so to her father.'

'Your mentor,' nodded Knox. 'When you promised to change your life, and he gave you another chance.'

'Exactly,' said Franklin.

'Still,' said Knox. 'I need to know.'

Franklin sank back into his chair, vanishing into shadow, except for a faint glow whenever he took a puff. 'It was Petitier's influence. It was greater on me than I like to admit. I already told you about his battle against Eurocentric history, but that wasn't his only fight. He hated all establishment institutions, particularly anything smug, anything vested. He was raised a Catholic, but of course he turned against them. And he couldn't just set it all aside, like most lapsed Catholics. He wanted payback.' A car pulled up a little way down the street. Its doors opened and then closed again. Knox kept an ear cocked as Franklin talked, wondering if Nergadze could somehow have tracked him here. 'He became obsessed by the absurdity of belief. Mocking religion was one of his favourite pastimes. That was one reason he was so fascinated by Eleusis. All these brilliant Greeks convinced they'd encountered something numinous and transcendent here: he was sure if he could find out what it was, he could take the mystique out of it, and so debunk belief.'

'And?'

'He'd originally written the paper while lecturing in France, but the journals wouldn't deal with him any more, he was simply too difficult.' He reached forward, tapped off some ash. 'But they would deal with me, so I submitted his paper instead. It was rather mischievous, I'm afraid, but then I was in the mood for mischief. It attributed the Greek Mysteries, indeed pretty much all established western religion, to something called ergot.'

'Ergot?' frowned Knox.

'A naturally-occurring parasitic fungus you sometimes find on grasses and grains,' explained Franklin. 'But, more pertinently for our case, a precursor of lysergic acid diethylamide.'

'You don't mean…'

'Yes,' smiled Franklin. 'LSD.'