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Jack told me on the phone before you joined me in Naples. I haven’t mentioned it before because the time was never right. Like now. Just so you know.’
    ‘I know.’ Maria straightened up and dusted off her sleeves. ‘Jack said he’d told you. Thank you, Maurice. Much appreciated. End of topic.’
    Hiebermeyer paused as if about to say something, then nodded. ‘So. Atlantis.’
    ‘Jack and Costas have plans to go back to the Black Sea to the site and find a Greek wreck they saw nearby, a trireme I think.’
    Hiebermeyer grunted. ‘I wish Jack would give me some time instead. I’ve got something much better for him. It’s supposed to be our job, feeding him any new leads. I’ve been trying to tell him about this one for months now.’ He sighed in exasperation, then looked at the statue. ‘But back to what we’ve got here. The Greek historian Herodotus also visited Saïs and described a lake outside the Temple of Neith, a sanctuary surrounded by statues like this, pharaohs and gods brought from older sites all over Egypt. By the Roman period Saïs was silted up and abandoned, but it would have been accessible to Roman ships and stripped of all its precious stone and statuary.’
    ‘You’re saying this was looted?’
    ‘I prefer the word transferred. The Romans who built this villa had access to great works of art from all over the Mediterranean and beyond, from many different cultures stretching far back in history. They were just like private collectors or museum curators today. Some of the best Greek bronze statues ever found came from this very villa, discovered only yards away from us when well-diggers broke through in the eighteenth century. Some Romans equated Anubis with Cerberus, guardian of the river Styx in the underworld, but to many he was a figure of derision, the barking one, a dog. This statue would have been an antiquity, a curio, probably seen as an amusing work of art and nothing more.’
    ‘I don’t know,’ Maria said quietly. ‘He seems to be staring at us, half in and half out of history, exactly like a guardian.’ She peered at Hiebermeyer. ‘Do you ever get superstitious, Maurice? I mean, King Tut’s tomb, the curse of the mummy, all that?’
    ‘No.’ Hiebermeyer spoke curtly. ‘I’m just a dirt archaeologist.’
    ‘Come on, Maurice. You must at least be thrilled by this. Remember when we were undergraduates, and you talked all the time about Egypt? And I mean all the time. Admit it.’
    Hiebermeyer looked at the jackal head, and allowed himself a rare smile. ‘I am thrilled. Of course I am. It’s wonderful. I can’t wait to see the rest of the inscription.’ He pressed the palm of his hand against the polished steatite, then looked down the tunnel. ‘But I really think this is the end of the road. This statue must have been revealed in the seismic aftershock last night, and we must be the first to see it. But others have been this far in the tunnel before us, before it was sealed up to get it ready for our arrival. The local site security people will have been in here as soon as that first earthquake opened it up. If they found anything it’s probably on the black market already. I doubt whether we’ll find anything else.’
    ‘I can’t believe you’re so cynical.’ Maria seemed genuinely affronted. ‘They’d never have allowed it. Have you forgotten where we are? The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum. Site of the only known library of papyrus scrolls to survive from antiquity, yet everyone knows that more of it must remain here to be found, sealed up behind these walls. You don’t just let anyone walk in here and pilfer it.’
    ‘Also one of the greatest disappointments in archaeology,’ Hiebermeyer said. ‘Almost all the excavated scrolls are by Philodemus, a third-rate philosopher of no lasting significance. No great works of literature, hardly anything in Latin.’ He replaced his glasses. ‘Ever wonder why the villa was never fully