‘Yes,’ Nell repeated firmly, ‘you do!’

Penny took the phone and studied it. ‘I do look OK, don’t I?’

‘More than OK,’ said Nell. ‘You look gorgeous!’

‘What about Aphrodite?’ Dora decided they’d heard quite enough about Penny. ‘How does she look?’

They all contemplated the statue.

‘She’d never make Page Three with those tits,’ commented Moira.

‘Moira!’ Nell replied, scandalized. ‘This is the age of Me Too and Time’s Up. You can’t talk like that.’

‘Aphrodite wouldn’t have time for any of that crap. She was always off seducing people. Ares, the god of war, for a start.’ Moira grinned. ‘And he was her half-brother!’

They were about to go back to the hotel when a bearded Orthodox priest emerged from the crowd, bristling with so much anger that even his beard looked cross.

‘Who is responsible for this disgraceful display?’ he demanded, pointing at the statue. ‘Do you not remember the Ten Commandments? “Thou shalt have no gods before me”? And I find this pagan statue being displayed as if it were a holy saint? I am going to find the mayor instantly!’

‘Shall I tell him it was the mayor who helped put it here?’ asked Nell naughtily. She looked at Penny and winked.

‘Or get him to explain why the scent of myrtle so often accompanies her?’ giggled Dora. ‘That would probably give him an apoplexy.’

‘I still don’t know what to make of that.’ Nell bit her lip. ‘But I do think there was something – I don’t know – magical?’

‘I do too,’ agreed Penny.

‘Yes, but Christ knows what,’ added Dora. ‘Oops – that expression seems a bit inappropriate, given the circumstances.’ They all began to giggle.

‘We obviously all imagined it,’ insisted Moira doggedly, refusing to laugh. ‘Group hysteria. It’s a well-known phenomenon.’

‘Let go a bit, Moira!’ Nell teased her. ‘What happened to the laid-back cocktail-maker of Treasure Island?’

‘Reality hit her,’ Moira replied sternly. ‘Now that we’ve found the statue, what are we all doing here?’

The question was like being pushed into a freezing swimming pool on a gorgeous summer’s day. They all looked at each other helplessly.

Dora was the first to recover. ‘Well, I for one am going to break the news to Takis and Cassandra that my new god-daughter is coming to stay with me in London. Moira’s quite right. I will have to start making plans for going home.’

Twenty-One

In the privacy of her room, Nell studied the photographs Ariadne had taken of them with the Venus of Kyri. They were of excellent quality, and everyone looked proud and happy. She would send them straight to Willow, and also to that English-speaking paper in Athens. Maybe they would pick it up. Surely finding Aphrodite had to be a good story, even on a strong news day.