‘And who could blame her?’ he replied, bowing, managing to sound sweet and funny rather than creepy, which was quite a skill, Dora decided.

They climbed up the disused mule track, pushing aside branches of yellow broom and breathing in the wild thyme under their feet, the only sound that of cicada and distant goat bells. The air was so clear you could almost bottle it.

‘You almost feel you were going back thousands of years,’ Dora whispered.

‘That’s what makes Greece so special,’ Professor Brinkley acknowledged. ‘We all feel its history belongs to us.’

Dora resisted the urge to say that what Greece usually made her think of was Mamma Mia. Besides, even she was beginning to get a sense of its rich mythical past.

They had reached the tumbledown house, and Dora paused a moment to take a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Once when I came here there was a kind of bench by the side of the wall. I sat down on it with Ariadne. Do you remember?’ she asked the girl. ‘It seemed to me to look a lot like the couch Venus is lying on in this drawing.’

‘And where did the drawing come from?’ asked the professor.

‘Moira found it in a guidebook. It’s supposed to have been done by a French envoy to show the king of France in the seventeenth century. Apparently this pirate found the statue of Venus and offered it to the king in exchange for a pardon. Then he discovered the king intended to hang him, so he hid it instead.’

‘How very exciting,’ replied Professor Brinkley.

‘And this was where I found the hand.’ Ariadne indicated an area of earth that had been recently disturbed.

‘But you felt the goddess visited here often?’ the professor asked gently.

Ariadne glanced at him to see if he was mocking her, but he seemed unusually serious.

‘Yes. Whenever I could smell the scent of myrtle, I knew she had been.’

‘Oh for Christ’s sake,’ a man’s voice exploded behind them, ‘you’re not still listening to this girl’s demented claptrap?’

They whirled round to find Xan Georgiades only a few feet away. Dora got the distinct impression he might have followed them.

‘She wouldn’t be the first to still believe in the old gods,’ the professor said evenly. ‘Half the shrines you see by the roadside used to be dedicated to Apollo or Demeter before they were conveniently commandeered by the Orthodox Church.’

‘And who the hell are you?’ Xan demanded rudely.

‘Karl Brinkley, Emeritus Professor from the Museum of Classical Antiquity, Cambridge.’

‘So you’ve started bringing in fucking experts!’ exploded Georgiades.

‘As a matter of fact,’ Dora replied calmly, ‘he’s a personal friend of ours.’

‘I remember you.’ He pointed a finger at Dora. ‘You were the troublemaker at the meeting who encouraged this crazy girl in her crazy visions.’