The Alpha and the Omega: The Beginning of the End, #2

By Alexandra Kleanthous

Angels and Demons meets The Mandalorian – a group of loyal supporters protect a divine child from a sect of religious zealots.

 

Jerusalem, 12th Century AD. An ancient scroll is discovered by the Knights Templar, prophesying the birth of a female Messiah at the start of the following millennium. This has ominous implications for the church and those with a vested interest, who create a secret, hidden Order to thwart this future threat.

 

Rome, present day. The Messiah, Salvatrice, is four years old, and the Order is hell-bent on her capture. With the world's faithful duped into believing the Antichrist resides within the Italian capital, The Eternal City has become an extremely perilous place in which to hide the child.

 

As the girls of Rome have their lives upturned, and billions look on in fear, can a band of loyal supporters keep mankind's true salvation safe?

 

A tense, twisting story spanning cities and centuries, The Alpha and the Omega is the second installment in the upmarket thriller trilogy that began with the acclaimed novel The Priest of Santa Maria.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anemos Books Limited
• Release date: Jan 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781999313234

Alexandra Kleanthous

Alexandra Kleanthous was born and raised in Greater London. She attended Film School in Sheffield where she explored the world of story-writing in fine detail. After writing and directing a few short films, her graduate film was screened internationally, including The Edinburgh International Film Festival. She has worked as a feature writer and even an artisan chocolatier. Alex’s stories always carry an element of the mystical with many of her works featuring biblical and religious themes, mythology, esoteric teachings, and the occult. These subjects hold a particular fascination for her.

Book preview

Prologue

So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Hebrews 9:28 ESV

Jerusalem, circa 12th Century AD

Gushing with sweat, a mud-splattered Godfrey de St Omer’s shovel hit the soil with a clunk. The flame above him glimmered like a soul on fire. He had been down there for months, searching for the priceless treasures promised through the whispers of the men before him.

Shadowy ghouls flickered like flames against the old stone walls, and staccato breaths and groans rang through the fetid air. There was barely a breath to be had in the stifled cellar of the Templum Solomonis.

Above ground, the earth was as dry as the sun, but beneath, where the light never shone, the soil was dank and offensive. It was a furnace of hell where mould and mud took hostage the olfactory and taste senses with the vengeance of the devil.

Godfrey stopped, breathless, his eyes wide with excitement. He tossed the shovel aside and peeled the mud away with his bare hands. A shimmer of gold reflected in his eyes. Intrigued, he looked closer and stripped away more dirt until a small surface appeared. He grabbed his copper drinking vessel, threw the mix of wine and aloe pulp on the object, and wiped it clean with a dirty cloth. His face was wild with glee.

‘Brothers.’

Eight weary men peered up from their pits, their soiled faces lit by the fire torches towering from the ground. The men had strategically placed each torch around the catacomb to enable the excavator to see where he dug. The flames encircled them to reveal sizeable holes, each forming an ordered pattern that covered most of the area.

‘We have struck something,’ announced Godfrey.

Each man climbed up from his crater, treading like a trapeze artist along the narrow pathways to reach Godfrey. They gazed down at him with awestruck expressions.

‘What have you discovered, Brother?’ asked Hugues de Payens. He jumped into the trench to see a small gold surface covered by mud. He raised his eyebrows. ‘Might it be gold?’ He moved in closer and scraped away more dirt. The surface area grew larger. ‘What are its dimensions?’

Godfrey took the shovel and prodded around the spot until he reached a sizeable portion. He then outlined the area with his spade. ‘It most certainly is large.’

‘And quite heavy,’ added Hugues. He looked up at the others looming above them. ‘Some assistance, Brothers.’

Two more men joined them and each took a section, tearing away the muddy skin to reveal a medium-sized item with a gold gleam and two protrusions on each side. It was too dark to tell what it was. ‘Let us try to lift it,’ suggested Hugues.

The rest of the men entered the hole, and as Godfrey scraped away the mud cementing the item to the ground, the others hoisted it up by hand.

Now it lay on the side, its size and identity still concealed beneath its armour of dirt.

They poured more liquid over it and each wiped a section with a cloth.

‘Stand back, Brothers,’ said Hugues. He took one of the flame torches and held it closer to the object. The red-orange glimmer highlighted a golden tone, revealing the outline of a chest.

Each man tilted his head in wonderment.

‘Are they wings?’ remarked Godfrey.

‘Might it be the Ark of the Covenant?’ asked Hugh de Champagne.

Hugues dusted one protrusion and felt its outline by running his fingers over its surface. He felt the ridges down to the box. ‘I think they are handles. Sir Geoffrey, take the other side. Upon my signal, remove the cover. Carefully!’

Geoffrey prepared himself.

‘Ready, unus, due, tres.’ Hugues nodded, and they heaved to no avail.

‘Brothers, this needs further investigation and careful study. Let us take it upstairs.’

21st Century: Drifting somewhere on the Ionian Sea on the night the Colossus sank

Christiano lay unconscious, ensconced in the inflatable lifeboat, his head wound weeping blood; his drenched body was trembling as the cold seeped into his bones. Lost in his unconscious, he could feel no physical pain, just a sense of wandering, searching for something – but what? He could not remember.

The black night enveloped the boat in a blanket of stars. They mirrored on the water’s surface as the raft carried on the breeze. The air was fresh and gentle – guiding, like a mother’s hand – and the only sound for miles was the soothing ripple of waves delivering him to his destiny.

The bright-orange raft continued towards distant lights, as if the ghosts of lost sailors carried it on their shoulders to safety. Lights sharpened as it drew closer and smoke billowed towards the ocean, mingling with the cooling breeze of the sea air.

The discordant sound of a played guitar grew louder as the boat slipped furtively by a bonfire on the nearby shore and carried on a slight wave where it crashed soundlessly against some rocks. It hissed as its orange skin pierced against the sharp edges, losing all its air until it was nothing but a drifting rag.

Christiano awoke to the sobering sting of salt in his wounds and a dark, suffocating murkiness. It took seconds for him to realise he was beneath the sea and not breathing at all. A wave sent him hurtling against the rocks to bash the back of his head. The excruciating pain forced a sharp intake of breath. Briny water filled his lungs. His eyes were wide with alarm, and his arms flapped in a frenzy as he coughed and spurted water and blood. He rose to the surface. His hands and legs thrashed to stay above the water. Bone-weary, only sheer determination kept him fighting. All the while, his stinging eyes struggled to focus. A blur of rocks danced before him. He grabbed one with weak, trembling hands and pulled himself closer, banging his knee against the rocks beneath the sea. He cried out in pain. His agonised face raged with fear. He threw his arms over the stones and held on for his life. In the quiet, as the waves lapped at his body, he heard the distant sounds.

His ears pricked up – a moment of hope. ‘Help me, someone, please!’ His voice was a whisper and his shivering seemed exaggerated. He cried louder, ‘Help! Over here…! Please!’ The breeze consumed his voice like a hungry beast. He wept desperately before acknowledging that he was his only hope. He summoned the little strength he had to pull his upper torso up and onto the coarse rocks. The rough and jagged surface tore mercilessly through his skin.

He heard a roar of mocking laughter. It made him angry and more determined. He continued to claw his way up the rocks until only his toes dangled in the water. Then, at the speed of a tortoise, he crawled and clawed his way across the rocks until he was safely on dry land. There he lay: his strength spent and his body as immovable as a mountain.

The bad guitar playing started again, and a slurred voice bellowed something about a girl.

‘Please.’ His lips barely moved. Then, the sounds drifted away, and he could feel himself being lifted and carried away with them, dispersing into a single note that married on the wind. It was comforting. Intoxicating. Restful.

The deflated raft, reduced to tatters, came loose from the rocks, free to drift once more. The sea carried it, as if intentionally, towards the beach, where it washed to shore.

Two high and inebriated twenty-something couples sat by a dying fire, smoking pot and drinking beer. The guitar player was facing out to sea and was the one to notice an orange object on the shoreline. He stopped mid-strum and pointed to what he thought were the remains of a parasail.

They stood up, and each staggered through the maze of empty bottles until they reached it.

‘Where’d it come from?’ said an emaciated woman with auburn hair.

‘The fire’s gone out!’ protested the man holding the guitar.

The auburn-haired woman laughed and jumped onto the remains of the inflatable raft. ‘Billy, let’s sleep here tonight.’ She grabbed his leg.

Billy pulled away and grabbed the end of the fabric with his girlfriend still on it. He dragged it up the beach, towards the road.

She laughed and screamed in protest before rolling off and onto the tarmac in hysterics. ‘Why you…’ She pulled the material away from him and chased him with it. It lifted like a parachute carried by the wind.

The other two now joined their friends, and all four of them ran down the road with the deflated raft raised above their heads.

The sun shone its morning greeting on the quaint Corfu town of Kassiopi. Its tentacles of light reached as far as the third-floor window of a small holiday apartment. Inside, the shreds of the lifeboat lay discarded on the floor; they were all but forgotten, strewn amongst pizza boxes and empty bottles of booze.

The auburn-haired woman opened her eyes to face the stark white ceiling above her. She made a sour face at the stale taste in her mouth, turned to her side and reached her arm to her mobile phone. ‘Shit!’ she yelled, rising upwards.

Billy, who was lying next to her, shot up. ‘Jess!’ He turned to her. ‘What’s happened?’

‘The taxi’s coming in ten minutes! Ally! Pete!’ Jess bounded off the bed and ran into the other bedroom. Its inhabitants stirred and looked her way. ‘We’ll be late for our flight!’

Ally and Pete jumped out of bed and what followed was a frenzy of tossing clothing into suitcases along with toiletries, souvenirs and shoes. They threw the rubbish into a large black bag.

‘What the hell is this?’ said Ally, with no recollection of last night’s events. She rolled up the torn remains of the lifeboat and threw it into the bag along with the rest of the rubbish. ‘Got to stop getting legless.’

A hoot alerted them that the taxi had arrived.

They rushed downstairs with their cases and tossed the black rubbish bags in the bin.

An old driver with stubble and black shades shook his head as he saw the mess rushing towards the car.

They entered the taxi as vocally as a bus of schoolchildren and the car rolled down the street towards the sound of sirens. They crossed paths with an ambulance, followed by a police car.

‘Somebody murdered or something?’ said Billy.

They each turned to the rear window to catch the back of the vehicles speeding by before facing forward and relaxing in their seats, pleased that they would not be missing their flight home.

Four Years Later: Sinai Desert

Excerpt from the Epilogue of The Priest of Santa Maria

‘My Father told me that Christiano’s heart is still filled with love for you and for me.’

‘Still?’ Angelica gulped and stood up. ‘Salvatrice, what do you mean, still?’ The words rasped through her throat.

‘My Father told me that Christiano is fast asleep.’

‘Asleep?’ questioned Angelica.

‘Salvatrice, do you mean a coma? Ah… Like Snow White?’ asked Kurush.

‘Yes.’ She nodded eagerly. ‘He hurt his head badly and fell asleep like Snow White.’

Angelica’s surroundings seemed to move in on her all at once. She gasped and clawed at her chest, trying to catch her breath. Kurush bounded up from the bed as she collapsed to the ground. He caught her in his arms and set her down on the floor. In her mind’s eye, she could see Christiano, his eyes closed; his expression still and reposed like the face of a corpse in an open casket. Her hand reached out as if caressing his cheek. ‘Christiano,’ she muttered.

Chapter One

At the very same moment: Athens, Greece

Shrouded in darkness, in a corner as narrow as a window ledge, Christiano cowered in fear. Beneath him was an infinite void that threatened to devour his very existence. Light, as minuscule as a keyhole, appeared ahead of him. A voice squeezed through it, enlarging its field as it reached him and blasted his name, ‘Christiano!’

A blur of white blinded him. He could hear sounds of clanking and distant voices. His nostrils flared at the strong odour of disinfectant in the air.

‘He’s awake. Get the doctor. He’s awake.’ The nurse, who was listening to his breathing through a stethoscope, observed him as if he were a new species.

Christiano searched his mind. A dense fog had ravaged his every thought and memory. He listened for something. Anything. There was nothing but white noise. He could not form a single thought as his disoriented vision faced an ever-increasing group of strangers – their heads circling above him in fascination. He tried to speak, but only grunts and nonsensical noises left his throat.

A woman with a kind smile peered over him with a look that seemed to know him. Yet she was unfamiliar. He recollected another face; one with deep eyes, black as obsidian, that pleaded for something. What was it?

Doctor Thalia Stamos had been observing Christiano for four years. She was familiar with every inch of his features. He had arrived on her first day on the job. To her, this connected them somehow, and she had looked out for him since.

‘It’s okay. You’re safe,’ she cooed. ‘Everyone, please just stand back. Don’t crowd him.’ They parted, and she sponged water over Christiano’s mouth. ‘You’ve been asleep for a long time. Do you understand me?’

He blinked in wonderment at the familiar sounds coming from her lips. Yet he did not understand her.

She pressed a button, and the automated engine whined as the top of the bed lifted, raising him to a sitting position. She reached for his hand to test his reflexes, but to him the movement appeared as if in slow motion.

He willed his hand to move, but there was no response. A quick scan down his body confirmed no motor control at all. Suddenly alarmed, he tried to move his arms, his hands, his fingers, his legs, his feet, his toes. Panic choked at his throat and his heartbeat raced as he struggled to catch his breath. He broke into a sweat. He was like a defective robot, and there was nothing he could do.

Thalia saw the terror on his face. ‘It’s okay.’ She patted his shoulder. ‘We’ll get you through this. First, let’s have some water. Can you hold the cup?’

He gazed at her, desperate to speak, to ask her what was wrong with him, but the words stuck to his lips like a foul taste.

She placed the cup in his hand, and while still supporting him, moved it across to his mouth, before letting it go.

The cup felt like a ton. Unable to grip, his hand shook uncontrollably, spilling the liquid over him.

She whipped it away, and his hand flopped as if unsupported by bones and muscles.

He wanted to raze the place to the ground, but all he managed were silent tears of despair.

Thalia’s heart sunk. She had been monitoring this intriguing stranger from the moment he arrived at the hospital from Corfu, where he was found unconscious on a pier. In terrible shape, her John Doe was flown straight over by helicopter and endured hours of surgery to stop the bleeding in his brain. He had a filthy, gaping wound in his head that could have led to a fatal infection, plus fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a broken leg. He had been through the worst of it, and God only knows what had happened to him. The Kassiopi police believed he was beaten elsewhere and dumped: some drug-related turf war. That was the extent of their investigation.

He never awoke from his surgery and had remained in a coma for the entire four years. With each passing year, Thalia was losing hope he would recover. She felt he looked so beaten down that it was almost as if he needed the sleep – even if it was for four years. Now another hardship lay ahead for him. Depending on the seriousness of his brain injury, he would have to learn the most basic functions from scratch. But she would be there to support him.

‘Can you open your eyes wide for me?’ She showed him her torch.

He did not respond. Instead, he stared with confused eyes as light as the Caribbean Sea. Thalia drifted through them as if sailing out to sea on a perfect summer’s day. The cruciform mole beneath his left eye captivated her. A brief flutter in her abdomen forced her to reel herself in. You’re a professional. Stop this nonsense! This handsome stranger needs my expert help, not a love-struck teenager. She broke out of her stupor and realised she had been staring at him for an unreasonable length of time. Her team stood around, waiting for instructions. She pried each eye wider and shone her torch into them.

They responded to the light and her movement.

‘That’s very good.’ She smiled at him. ‘Okay, everyone, go to your stations. We can run more tests later. Let’s give him space to gather himself.’ She helped him to sip more water.

He welcomed the fresh, cooling liquid into his mouth.

‘There, you see. We’ll help you get your strength back. Everything will be all right.’

Christiano stared with fascination at the woman before him. He recollected the language she spoke, yet he did not understand her. He recalled nothing. Not a shred of his identity. Just that voice that had awoken him. That familiar voice. Kind. Gentle. Soothing. But whose was it? This woman? No. The voice in his dream seemed to live in his mind. What had she called him?

His surroundings were not unfamiliar. He was in a hospital, although how he knew that escaped him. Nurses and doctors surrounded him and other patients, but who he was still eluded him. He attempted to speak again, but a babble of sounds passed his lips. His head flopped against the pillow in frustration.

‘I know how you feel but don’t worry.’ She held a mirror to his face and smiled. ‘Look how well you’ve recovered. You should have seen the state you were in when they found you on that pier in Corfu. You’ll gain your strength back in no time.’

As he gazed at his reflection, even his image escaped him. Unable to push it aside, he turned away. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

Her eyes moistened in sympathy. ‘It’s okay.’ She had become too involved. ‘That’s enough for now.’ She withdrew the mirror, racked with guilt for making matters worse.

Christiano’s eyes grew heavy, and soon he was back in the comfort of darkness.

Chapter Two

Soggy crumbs lined the bottom of an empty cup on Errikos Chronis’ desk, and beside it a half-eaten biscuit lay discarded. The intoxicating remnants of coffee wafted to Thalia’s nose. Her tongue longed for its taste and her body could do with the pick-me-up.

Displayed on the wall’s light box were Christiano’s CT scans. The sunlight shone through the office window, bleaching out the images on the screen. Thalia’s superior closed the blinds, plunging the room into darkness. He studied the scans through large rectangular glasses with a thick black rim. On his desk was a selfie he had taken with his wife, two sons and their daughter on a holiday trip to Rome. The Colosseum towered behind them as they smiled for the camera.

‘So now that our Yiannis has miraculously awoken from a four-year coma, we are running various tests to see how severe the damage is,’ she explained.

‘What do we know so far?’

‘Although much improved after four years, as you can see, there’s still minor damage to the limbic region, but we are hoping his memory loss is transient. Also, we’re looking at damage to the basal ganglia. He cannot control the movement in his arms or legs, which is causing him upset. However, his eye-opening responses are excellent. He can open his eyes spontaneously if spoken to, and if he feels pain. He can follow the light of my torch, and his irises respond to the light appropriately. His arms and legs also flinch in response to pain from stimuli such as a pinprick on the skin’s surface.’

Errikos listened with interest.

‘The daily massages and electrical muscle stimulation while he was in a coma has meant that, although his motor function is impaired, his muscle condition is good enough to start physical therapy in a couple of days. It might be a long journey, but I believe, over time, he will walk and move normally,’ she continued.

‘Good. And is he speaking?’

‘No, but what’s interesting is there’s no damage to the Broca or Wernicke areas, so his ability to comprehend language and produce speech does not appear to be impaired.’

He raised his eyebrows; his interest piqued. ‘So, you think it’s psychosomatic?’

‘Exactly.’ She nodded. ‘I think his speech will return at some point. Probably a spontaneous moment. Time will tell.’

The next day, sat at a round table in a sterile room, Christiano stared at the stark white wall ahead of him.

Thalia sat nearby with his file open on her lap. She clicked on the lid of her pen a few times to grab his attention. ‘Yiannis!’

He looked at her with a furrowed brow.

‘You’re distracted today. Do you remember my name?’

His gaze was vacant.

‘Th.a.l.i.a.’ She sounded out her name. ‘Thalia!’ She pointed to herself. ‘Can you say it?’

He tried to sound the letters, but his tongue felt tied in a complicated knot that could never be undone. His face turned a shade of red, and he looked down as if unable to face her.

‘That’s okay. You’ll get there.’ She placed a whiteboard on the table and handed him a felt-tip pen. ‘Can you write?’

In a moment he saw a flash of a woman. A pretty face. She was writing on a whiteboard.

Thalia disrupted his thoughts. ‘Yiannis.’

He turned to face her again; his head tilted, his eyes questioning.

‘Did you remember something?’ Thalia put her hand on his.

His face looked confused.

‘It’s okay. I think your memory will return.’ She gave him a smile of encouragement. ‘You’re doing really well.’

He turned away from her.

Her smile faded and she withdrew, deep in thought.

That evening, Thalia was working late at her desk; her laptop was on and Christiano’s file open. Outside, the crisp sky offered another warm Athenian night. A half-eaten sandwich sat on a chipped plate with an empty coffee cup next to it. She was deep in thought. She wanted to help him find his family and she believed she could do a better job than the local Kassiopi police. He had the right to know who he was, she wanted to know too, and this was all the information she had on him. She was sure that some detail in these files, however small, held the clue to his life.

Her tired eyes scrutinised the pages until her vision blurred. She removed her glasses, cleaned them and rubbed her eyes before putting them back on. Back to her research, she ran her index finger down the facts laid out before her and stopped on a particular date.

A local restauranteur who arrived at work early one morning had found her John Doe. Having parked his car and left his vehicle, he saw a man sprawled across the ground on the pier opposite. He alerted the authorities, and an ambulance took the man to the local hospital in Corfu. Once the doctors had assessed his injuries, they rushed him to a specialist hospital in Athens where he would have a better chance of survival. As Thalia pored over the date he was found, her office phone rang. A yellow light flashed on the phone, indicating an internal call.

She picked it up, irritated by the interruption. Yet as she listened, her face lit up. ‘I’ll be right there.’ She dropped the receiver, ran from the room, and rushed down the corridor into the ward. She approached the nurse on night duty with a questioning look.

‘He’s stopped now, but I managed to record it.’ The nurse withdrew her mobile phone from her pocket and played the recording.

Thalia listened to the muffled sounds of clumsy fingers over the microphone, to hear the faint speaking of a foreign language. The voice repeated over and over the words, ‘Sali sulla barca! Sali sulla barca!’ He spoke the phrase with such urgency; it was clear it was a moment of significant danger.

‘Italian,’ said Thalia. ‘I’m sure that’s Italian.’ She sighed with relief. ‘This is great news. We have something to go on.’ She grabbed the nurse by her shoulders. ‘Well done, Dora. Excellent work! Forward the recording to my phone.’

Chapter Three

Vacant eyes and a bemused face stared back at Christiano. He loathed seeing his reflection, but, in a room filled with mirrors, he had no choice. It was a torture chamber for him. With no idea of the previous night’s events, he prepared himself for his first physiotherapy session.

‘Okay, Yiannis. Are you ready?’ asked his physical therapist, a muscular Russian man with a chiselled face.

With his arms draped over the parallel walking bars, Christiano looked down at his legs. They looked as warped as two frail branches. His feet pointed inwards. The image was all wrong, but, as much as he tried, he could not straighten them. His face swarmed red like a hive of angry hornets, and his body trembled like an earthquake with a magnitude of seven point nine. He felt trapped in his own body and he wanted to tear the world apart.

The therapist had seen that expression all too often. He comforted Christiano with a touch to his shoulder and looked straight into his eyes. ‘Just one step, Yiannis. Come on.’ He held up his hand to show the number one. ‘One step. You can do it. I know you can.’

Christiano could tell by the man’s face that he was willing him to walk; encouraging him to fight. With a newfound determination, he gripped the bars until his knuckles whitened, and willed his leg to move. His body quivered with all the strength he could summon until his leg lifted a smidgen off the ground. It was nothing noticeable, but an enormous victory.

‘That’s it!’ said the therapist, clapping. ‘Keep going.’ He beckoned him forward with a beaming smile; his eyes lit up like Christmas.

Christiano focused harder, willing his foot to move once more, but the space between his head and his feet seemed miles apart, and his mind was a mass of drifting fog. He needed to focus harder, to find that place that eluded him. He looked down at his feet once more, as if staring at them would make them move. His jaw clenched, and he stared with wide, determined eyes. His body trembled, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead. Then a flash of a memory. He saw himself in a mirror – a contrast to the man he saw today – his hands splayed on the ground, lifting his body in the air, his legs straight before him. His arms were well-muscled, and he could feel the determination in the man.

Without realising, his foot shifted forward one step.

Unaware of his victory, Thalia was in her office playing the recording on her laptop over and over. Once again, her John Doe’s file was open at her desk and she was looking at the date he was found. In a moment of inspiration, she picked up the phone and dialled a number. A faint ringing sounded through the earpiece when the call was picked up.

‘Sophia, how are you?’

On the end of the line, Sophia was sitting in a busy office. Mounted on the walls opposite her desk were life-sized photos of people caught in dire situations. A firefighter carried a child out of a burning building; people were collapsed on the ground with their hands pleading up to the heavens, their pained expressions looking upwards for answers. Other photos showed crying children, and gaunt street dogs looking hungry and neglected. In the middle of the photographs was a banner with the words, The People’s Voice. Beneath it was the subheading, Never a Story Left Untold.

‘Thalia!’ Sophia smiled for a second, before it quickly faded. ‘You’re not calling me to tell me you’re not coming to my birthday on Saturday, are you?’

‘No!’ replied Thalia, trying to drown out the hubbub at the other end of the line. ‘Can you imagine your best cousin missing your thirtieth birthday? Just no setting me up again. The last one was a Neanderthal.’

‘That wasn’t me. It was Stelios. He’s determined to set you up with one of his friends so we can double date.’

Thalia let out a chuckle.

‘So, what can I do for you?’ asked Sophia.

‘I was hoping you could help me with something relating to your work. I have a patient who was brought in four years ago. He’s been in a coma all this time and awoke only last week. He hadn’t uttered a word until last night when he spoke in his sleep. It turns out he’s Italian.’

Sophia’s response was one of intrigue. ‘What did he say?’

‘He kept on repeating over and over, the words, Sali sulla barca! Sali sulla barca!’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘And do you know what it means?’

‘I checked with Google translate and it means Get on the boat.’

‘As intriguing as it all sounds, where do I come in?’

‘Well, he spoke the words with such panic and urgency, and considering he was found with life-threatening injuries on a pier, I want to rule out whether he’s referring to a lifeboat. You must have archives of backdated papers. If I give you the date he was found, I was hoping you would look at past articles and let me know if anything comes up.’

‘Why don’t you just reach out to the Italian authorities?’

‘I’ve already done that. I sent a missing person’s query to Interpol Rome and attached his photo. But while I wait for them to get back to me, I thought I’d keep looking. It helps me to know what he’s been through.’

‘Okay, let me have the details of the case. I’ll look and call you back.’

Two hours later, Thalia’s cell phone rang. She looked at the caller ID to see her cousin’s face smiling back at her. She grabbed the phone with bated breath. ‘Sophia, please tell me you have something for me.’

Sophia’s voice sounded through the earpiece. ‘I found only one article that could relate to your man. I’ll email you the link, and you can look for yourself.’

‘Thanks for doing this. I owe you big.’

‘No problem. Just buy me a more expensive birthday present, and we’ll be even.’

‘You’ve earned it.’

‘Well, maybe. Look and see. It may be irrelevant. You should have received it by now.’

A new message appeared on Thalia’s screen. ‘Yes, got it.’ She smiled and clicked on the link. The article flashed up with a headline that read: Athenian Cook Sole Survivor on Italian Cargo Ship.

It described how a Greek man, named Achilleus Megalos, was the sole survivor when the Italian cargo ship, on which he was the ship’s cook, exploded mid-way on its journey from Italy to Athens. He suffered from a broken and gashed arm in need of several stitches, and a minor leg injury.

Thalia’s expression looked strained. ‘So, our John Doe could have been on this ship?’

‘It’s a possibility. You have the Italian–Greek connection. Also, it relates to a boat. You said your man was speaking in Italian and saying the words, Get on the boat. And he was found close to water.’

‘Yes, but it was a wild guess. To be honest, I didn’t expect you to find anything. Thalia took a moment to absorb the information. ‘It all sounds so far-fetched, yet the enigma is in my ward.’

‘I think it’s worth your speaking to my colleague Andreas. Do you remember him from that time when we had after-work drinks? He wrote the article and interviewed the survivor.’

‘Oh yes, I do. That would be great.’

‘I’ll pass you on now. Hold on.’

‘Thanks, Sophia. I’ll see you on Saturday.’

The line went dead for a moment to be replaced with music. In the meantime, Thalia put the phone on loudspeaker and reread the article. The music stopped mid-beat.

‘Hi, Thalia,’ said Andreas.

‘Hi, Andreas,’ she replied. ‘Thanks for taking the call.’

‘No problem. Sophia tells me there may be another survivor from that ship that sank from four years ago.’

‘Well, yes. Possibly.’

‘The survivor, Achilleus, is a very approachable guy. I can put you in touch with him. Maybe you can email me a photo to forward to him? That way it won’t waste too much of your time or his.’

‘Yes, that’s an excellent idea. Let me have your email address.’ Thalia noted down Andreas’ response. ‘Great, I’ll do that now.’

‘While I wait for that, I’ll try calling Achilleus,’ added Andreas. ‘As it was four years ago, his contact details may have changed.’

‘Anything you can do would be great.’

‘Also, I can speak to port authorities. I seem to remember that the survivor’s cousin is the head of Port Customs. He may know something, and he can give me updated details of any changes.’

‘That’s great, Andreas. Even if it turns out to be a dead end, it’s more than I expected and more than I’ve had to go on so far.’

Chapter Four

Tawny patches dappled the linoleum floor beneath Christiano’s feet. One could not tell whether it was badly stained or in the design itself. He looked at his legs as if they were alien appendages.

Thalia watched him, wondering what he was thinking.

‘Yiannis?’

He looked up, as if responding to his actual name.

She could see the defeat in his eyes, and it worried her. ‘Potrei avere un indizio su chi sei.’

His eyes widened.

Her spine straightened with excitement. ‘You understood me, didn’t you?’ She pointed at him. ‘Sei Italiano!’ Then she pointed to herself. ‘La sono Greca.’

A slight smile came to his lips and his eyes lit up. He opened his mouth and tried to speak but was disappointed to find he was still voiceless.

She typed into Google translate on her iPhone: ‘There’s a translator coming to help you this afternoon’. She repeated its translation in bad Italian. ‘Un traduttore verrà ad aiutarti oggi pomeriggio.’

An orderly brought a tray with a plate of food and a plastic cup filled with water and