In the afternoon El Faro had printed a special edition in colour. Senator Zamora was photographed standing on the basaltic cobblestones which paved one of three access shafts to a network of pit tombs submerged by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

On the tarpaulin at his feet were samples of initial finds. While his professional colleagues might find precipitate the speed with which he had brought these items to the world’s attention, he asked their indulgence. It was necessary to demonstrate beyond doubt the need for an immediate halt to the tunnel before Abyla’s heritage was destroyed.

Abdul Hadi, the tunnel-operator, had bored into a chapel consecrated to Baal-Rosh. The exhibits came mostly from this chapel: an ostrich egg with facial markings, some aromatic rushes, a piece of red segamum bark for dysentery and a votive statuette of a veiled lyre-player fashioned in pink granite.

The most impressive object was a marble sarcophagus with a gabled lid. Carved into the marble was the figure of a man, surrounded by birds, animals and fish. Senator Zamora himself could make not head nor tail of the cursive script. But if the text was dedicated to a god, the iconography would suggest Melcart, prince of navigation, dyes and patron of the tophet. Whatever it was, this discovery provided the elusive evidence pre-historians had been waiting for. “This will fill the void in our Punic understanding, a gap which has contributed to the nebulous hypotheses of so many interpreters, notably (and regrettably) from the Peninsula.”

The interview extended for three pages during which comparisons were made with Renan at Byblos and Quagliati at Scoglio del Tonno. The Peoples of the Sea, Senator Zamora told El Faro, took their ideas from many sources. “And these they felt as free as the levante to reinterpret.” This explained the thronging intricacies of their art, the outbreak of animal and plant carvings, the abundance of bird and fish imagery.

In their horror vacui they omitted nothing. No symbol of faith. No example of daily life. Nothing!

The front page also devoted space to an interview with Governor Menendez. Photographed over three columns, his face in relief not unlike that of the funerary mask discovered by Senator Zamora on the second level, Menendez emphasised the pride he had taken in this discovery. “This is a historic day for Abyla and for Abylans everywhere.” As everyone knew, the Phoenicians were a magnificent, much misunderstood race. He confirmed he would be making a statement to the chamber at six-thirty in the evening.

10

The horizon above La Mujer Muerta darkened with streaks of antimony and in the afternoon it rained. Outside the Governor’s palace, the telegraph wires sparked because of a bad connection. Menendez, distracted, watched the sparks from his bedroom and the rain flowing onto the road, like fat on tin foil, hissing. He scratched the back of his square neck.

From her bed, propped on not-quite sun-tanned elbows, Beatrice Menendez, inspiration for Abyla Television’s “Whose Eyes?” competition, surveyed her naked husband and thought: all you ever do with that is water the lawn. He thought: she is only ever happy when something is wrong. That’s why she is on such good form. She is wreathed in smiles because she recognises the symptoms of disaster.