‘It’s so fascinating in here,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Would it be OK if I swam?’

They all stared at her, stunned.

‘Dora, are you feeling quite well?’ Moira asked.

She was saved, if that was the word, by Nikos. ‘I am sorry, Pandora, it is not such a good idea. There are currents. And the water is very, very cold.’

Dora nodded, fighting her disappointment, yet overcome with relief at her deliverance. She liked Nikos. He seemed a calm man, and yet a surprising one. She might even trust him with her suspicions.

A few minutes later they were back in the glorious sunlight and Dora was asking herself if she was mad. What was it to her if Xan had found a statue and hidden it so that he could go ahead with his holiday home?

Yet, try as she might not to think about it, she found she did care about the fate of the lost Venus.

‘Kyria Moira! Kyria Moira!’ The sound of someone shouting penetrated Moira’s pleasant on-deck snooze as they headed back in to the harbour. Takis was standing on the quayside dancing about like a bear on hot coals. ‘You have a visitor!’

Moira gathered up her stuff, unable to immediately imagine who on earth her visitor might be.

‘It is a venerable gentleman,’ Takis enlightened her. ‘He seems extremely distinguished.’

‘Could it be your dad?’ enquired Penny.

‘I doubt it. He was a schoolteacher who drank himself to death in 1973.’

‘Oh Moira, I’m so sorry,’ Penny apologized, deciding that perhaps this explained both Moira’s social oddness and her desire to show off. ‘I wonder who it is, then.’ She said goodbye to Nikos and thanked him profusely for taking them. ‘It’s been so amazing to see all round Kyri in your beautiful boat.’

‘I would take you any time,’ Nikos replied, and the look in his eyes told her he meant it. ‘Perhaps next time just us,’ he added softly so that the others wouldn’t hear.

‘I’d like that very much,’ replied Penny, trying not to blush.

They didn’t have long to wait for the solution to the mystery. A curiously dressed man in an ancient white suit with matching long white hair, who nevertheless managed to give off an air of great distinction, walked towards them.

‘Hello, Moira dear,’ he greeted her, his small eyes dancing with merriment. ‘Thought I’d give you a bit of a surprise and just turn up! I hate tedious arrangements.’

‘Professor Brinkley!’ Moira gasped. ‘But I only got in touch with you the day before yesterday!’

‘Nothing like a bit of spontaneity at my age,’ he replied, squeezing her hand. ‘You might be dead if you don’t do things at once. What’s to keep me in Cambridge anyway? I’m emeritus now, you know.’

‘What’s emeritus?’ whispered Dora. ‘Is it a condition, like dementia?’

‘I think it’s a posh word for retired,’ Nell replied.