Will Adams - The Lost Labyrinth

'I'm getting your helicopter,' Angelos promised. 'You have to give me time.'

'It's not about that,' panted Knox. 'I think I know who that man in the CCTV is.'

'And?'

'His name's Iain Parkes.' He came to a wire fence, its stakes topped by animal skulls. He pushed down the top strand and straddled it. 'He's an archaeologist at Knossos. And he's with Gaille right now.'

'Okay,' said Angelos.

'Okay?' protested Knox, as he continued along the pass. 'She's stuck on her own with two killers, and you're telling me it's okay?'

'I didn't mean it like that. It's just the coroner sent over his toxicology report earlier. He now thinks our initial assessment was wrong, that Petitier wasn't killed by a blow to his head, after all.'

'What?'

'It was a heart attack, almost certainly brought about by an overdose. His system was flooded with drugs. Cocaine. Opium. Speed. Acid. You name it. I've never seen levels this high. You could boil down his blood and sell it on the street for millions.'

'An overdose,' muttered Knox in disbelief, as he recalled Augustin lying in intensive care.

'Theofanis thinks it happened like this,' said Angelos quickly. 'Petitier was an addict, that much is clear. Mixing with other people is hard after twenty years on your own. Not to mention giving a talk to a large conference. He'd have wanted a big stash close to hand.'

'That's why he was protecting his bag? Because it was filled with drugs?'

'It makes sense. I mean, we've been trying to find out what flight he came in on, but none of the airlines have any record of him. So now we're thinking maybe he came by boat instead, because he couldn't risk his bag being searched. Anyway, he gets to the hotel, Augustin lets him in, then leaves. He's confused, he's stressed, he thinks he's being followed. He takes something. Then something else. A real cocktail, uppers, downers, whatever he's got. He begins to feel unwell. He feels unclean. People often do with hallucinogens; their skin crawls. He takes a shower. He has his first cardiac event, not fatal but severe enough to make him fall. He hits his head against the taps. His scalp splits open, he's disoriented. He knows he needs a doctor, but he can't risk anyone finding his drugs or it could mean years in gaol, so he struggles out of the bathroom, dripping blood, and takes his overnight bag out onto the balcony. He rips it open, flings his drugs over the railing, then goes back inside for the phone. But he doesn't make it in time, he has his second heart attack, and it cripples him. And then he just lies there dying, unable to do anything until you and Augustin come in.'

'LSM,' muttered Knox.

'I beg your pardon?'

'His last word to me. Not Elysium. LSM. It's a variant of LSD that he experimented with. He was trying to tell me what drugs he'd taken. And his final croak. Cocaine.'

'I've suspended Grigorias,' said Angelos. 'I want you to know that. And we'll hold a full and independent investigation. You have my word. I've already sent a team to look in the alley beneath the balcony, see if we can find those drugs.'

'The hotel keeps its trash there,' Knox told him. 'I heard them collecting it yester-' A gunshot cracked out ahead, echoed ominously off the pass walls. 'Jesus,' said Knox. 'Did you hear that?'

'I'll get you your helicopter,' promised Angelos.

Knox stuffed the mobile back in his pocket as he ran. Two more shots sounded, giving strength to his heavy legs. The pass suddenly dropped away ahead of him and he reached the precipitous brim of a massive caldera. He scanned the plain at its foot, the fields, the house, the high surrounding cliffs. His eye was snagged by movement in a sea of yellow gorse far away to his right, where a figure shrunk by distance advanced upon another huddled in a clearing. Even from this distance, he knew it was Gaille. He yelled as loudly as he could, but the wind threw his shouts back uselessly in his face. He looked down at the excuse for a path beneath him: however recklessly he took it, he couldn't hope to get to Gaille in time to help her. But there was a track of sorts leading around the rim of the escarpment, and maybe if he got to the cliffs above her…

His legs were already aching and weak, but he steeled himself for one last effort, and set off.

Gaille flung herself to the ground as Mikhail turned the Mauser on her, hiding beneath the canopy of gorse. Beside her, Argo was going crazy; he danced in circles, tangling up his leash, then broke away from her and raced back along the path. 'Argo!' she cried. 'Come back!' But he didn't listen, he charged on. She braced herself; a single shot cracked. Her heart twisted. She heard Argo fall, his piteous yelps and whines. A second shot, then only silence.

Hatred, grief, anger, terror. Too many emotions to process. She heard rustling: Mikhail was coming for her. She scrambled through the gorse on her hands and knees, the gorse's secret life revealed, beetles and lizards and butterflies, sunlight dappled by the tangle of branches. A bird whirred from its nest almost beneath her face, startling her so that she raised her head above cover, ducking back down again before Mikhail could shoot.

She emerged into a small clearing, the last thing she needed. She crept around its edge, looking around for a way out, not seeing one. The escarpment rose to her left, though it wasn't a sheer wall like elsewhere, but rather a shale-covered slope. She leapt to her feet and ran along it with her head ducked, hoping to put distance between herself and Mikhail, but the shale gave way beneath her, she stumbled and fell almost at once into the yellow tangle. To her surprise, branches of gorse fell away with her, and she saw that their bases had been sawn-through, and that they'd been deliberately stacked against the foot of the hill, as if someone had been trying to hide something.

Mikhail was still bulling his way towards her. She pulled more branches away, revealing symbols chiselled into the rock-face, a triangle and a wavy band, and then the small low black mouth of a cave opening. She dropped down onto her hands and knees to crawl along it, grit and earth sprinkling on her face and hair, before it abruptly opened up. It was too dark to see inside, yet the echoes of her own heavy breathing gave her the impression of cavernous space. She got out of the way of the mouth, allowing in enough light to see a pickaxe and a sledgehammer resting against the wall. The sledgehammer was too heavy for her, so she took the pickaxe instead. The thought of using it against anything living made her feel queasy, but she reminded herself of what Mikhail had just done to Iain and Argo, and it gave her strength. She could hear him approaching outside; she hid herself out of view. The faint light dimmed further as he found the mouth. 'Are you in there?' he teased. 'Are you waiting for me?'

'Go away,' she told him.

'I won't hurt you if you come out. You have my word.'

'I said go away.'

It went even darker, she heard him grunting his way through the cave's tight mouth. She lifted the pickaxe, readied herself to strike. Perhaps he heard her, or glimpsed her foot, but he must have realised his vulnerability, for he stopped and then retreated. The cave grew a little lighter again. She rested the pickaxe back down on the ground, keeping a firm grip upon its shaft, certain it wouldn't be long before he tried again.

Nico held his phone in both hands for the best part of a minute, as though it were a talisman, as though it had the power to answer prayers. And maybe it did.

All people's lives were set as children, Nico believed. Formative years, they called them, and they were right. The first time you ate a food that astonished you with its exquisite taste. Your first love, your first applause. Magical moments that made you so yearn for a reprise that you'd structure your whole life around them.