The Atlantis Keystone (32 page)

“Well, I thought you had already worked that out.” She paused and took his other hand. “Your father is your father Erik! He was unfaithful to your mother. You might have noticed that your grandmother didn’t always see eye to eye with your father. This is the reason. Your mother doesn’t know. It was kept a secret. She doesn’t know who your biological father is. Many people on the estate have guessed it but your mother has never said anything about it. Either she never knew, which is not unlikely given that she didn’t spend a lot of time on the estate or with her husband at the time, or she pretends to be ignorant about it to protect her own position.”

Erik felt ill. He needed to get some fresh air. He stood up and went outside without uttering another word. It was dark but the floodlights revealed the old stone house in all its glory. At that moment he hated it. He felt lonely, abandoned. The large empty, lifeless building exaggerated his solitude and isolation from the rest of the world. The revelation that his mother was not his biological mother explained a lot, in particular the complete lack of emotions and love from her side towards him. But still, it made him feel like an outsider, as if he didn’t belong there. His mother was a young woman from Denmark who had been dead for thirty years! His father was nothing but an adulterous deceiving crook that had lived his life knowing that his own child was the fruit of that adultery! Who was he; a lost soul with no one in his life? In a way he had lost his life. He had lost his wife and now he had also lost his parents and his understanding of whom he was and his heritage. Some people would say he was lucky. He had money, a good job and a good education but that was nothing without love, laughter, relationships and having an identity. He took a deep breath and listened to the sounds of the evening. It was almost completely quiet around him. Not a sound, not even birds. Suddenly the calm was interrupted when his mobile phone, which he for some reason still carried in his jeans pocket, started to ring. It took him by surprise but he managed to come to his senses quickly enough to answer, without reflecting on who it could be.

“Erik, it’s me. My brother just told me you called. How’s it going?” Emma had finally phoned him back.

“Hi! So good to hear your voice!” He told her about the dreadful news he had only just found out, that the dead woman in the chest was in fact his own mother.

Emma was speechless but quickly recovered in time to suggest she come over to Sweden for a few weeks to keep him company: “It would be so good to see you, and Torpa, and also to have some peace and quiet to work on the final stages of my dissertation.”

Erik was more than happy to oblige. He tried to tone his reply down but inside he was screaming with joy. From having been in a state of depression, Erik was suddenly cheerful. She missed him and she wanted to see him!

They agreed that she would try to get a flight already for the next day. After they had hung up, Erik couldn’t stop smiling. He figured it would be strange to return to Britt-Marie with a big grin on his face after the terrible news she had only just shared with him. She would think he had gone mad. So when he re-entered the house he tried to keep his facial expression as serious as possible.

Britt-Marie had moved and was sitting, almost hugging her glass of wine, in front of the fireplace in the living room. She was rocking back and forth, which wasn’t a good sign. He looked over at the wine bottle next to her. It was almost empty. She must have had at least two glasses whilst he was out. She didn’t look over at him as he came in. He felt he needed to tell her it was ok. He would be ok… and it wasn’t her fault.

“Emma called. She’s coming over, hopefully tomorrow!” She turned around with a perplexed look on her face. He could see she had been crying. He went over to her and bent down to hug her. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine now that Emma is coming. I’m a big boy. I will survive. I have survived so far with less than loving parents. This won’t change anything.”

She finally spoke. “I’m sorry for not telling you before.”

“Don’t worry. I understand why you didn’t. It’s not exactly the sort of news you can just blurt out.” He then realised a point which he in a state of shock had failed to see; that none of what she had said explained how Paul had got hold of the tablet. That was how their conversation had started. He asked her and sat down next to her. She hesitated for what felt like an eternity before she answered, still with her eyes fixed on the dancing fire. It had started to rain outside and he could hear the violent smatter on the living room window.

“Ever since I made the connection about Anne-Lise’s death I suspected that your grandmother was somehow the instigator of the break-in in August. She knew what the wall was hiding and she would have wanted to ensure that the murder that she may have committed all those years ago remained a secret. It makes perfect sense.”

“From what I heard one of the police officers say when we opened the chest, Anne-Lise was either poisoned or she was buried alive in there. There was no sign of any exterior wounds. I have not heard anything further from the police but either way, the perpetrator must have opened the wall somehow, removed the existing contents of the chest, if any, put Anne-Lise in there, either asleep or dead and then bricked up the wall again and re-plastered it. I really cannot see how my grandmother could have done all that. She must have been helped by someone who knew what they were doing.”

“I agree. She couldn’t have done it all alone,” Britt-Marie said gravely.

“Well, my other point is that she, or the person who helped her, must have emptied the contents of the chest thirty years ago. It could have contained anything – and my guess is that we were right; it contained the other half of the Torpa tablet. She could have hidden it somewhere on the estate and Paul could have found it. Or she could have given it to Paul…”

“Yes, I suppose so…” Britt-Marie seemed tired or diverted. They had both had a fair bit to drink by that point and could not drive. Erik offered for her to stay over in her old room. She gratefully agreed.

“Goodnight Erik. I’m sorry about everything. You’re a lovely boy. I love you as if you were my own son.”

“I love you too, Britt-Marie.” They hugged again and each went to their rooms. Erik could not sleep. He lay awake for what felt like half the night, tossing and turning, running everything over in his head until it hurt. It was nearly four o’clock in the morning when he suddenly heard footsteps in the corridor outside his door. He wondered what Britt-Marie was doing. Her footsteps continued down the stairs and then out of earshot. She must be going for some water. Erik then thought he heard the front door close but figured he was probably tired enough for his mind to be playing tricks on him. He decided it was definitely time to get some sleep. It was Sunday but he had to be fresh, just in case Emma managed to get some last minute deal on a flight. He pulled the covers up under his chin and drifted off to happy thoughts of seeing Emma again. The news that his mother was not actually his biological mother was no longer at the forefront of his mind. He had earlier decided that he was not going to mention to his parents that he knew, at least not yet.

B
ritt-Marie made no mention of her nocturnal excursion over an uncomfortable breakfast the next morning. Erik might have imagined it but he doubted it. It was definitely footsteps and she was the only other person in the house. He did not ask her about it. Instead, he thanked her for telling him about his biological mother and went straight to the airport to pick up Emma. She had managed to get a last minute flight.

As he saw her walking towards him at Arrivals he got a warm happy feeling inside, looking forward to a couple of weeks in her company. Erik took her heavy bag on the way to the car park, chatting about the events of the evening before. As soon as they were in the car, he realised with disappointment that he may not have been the only reason for her Swedish visit. She dived straight into a speculation of where the lost half tablet could be. She explained that without the entire tablet she had no chance of getting anywhere. She only had the existing half and the incomplete photograph of the Linear A side of the lost tablet but she had realised that she could not crack the code of Linear A without the complete Egyptian hieroglyphic side. She was intending to devote a significant proportion of her time to its search while she was there. She saw it as a key ingredient to academic success.

“Torpa is still the obvious place to look for the tablet. Who would be stupid enough to carry something like this around. And someone clearly gave the photo of it to Paul when he was at Torpa. Unless someone later transferred the tablet from its thirty year old hiding place, it’s still there; waiting for us to find!” In her excitement at the thought, she kissed Erik on the cheek. “I’ve missed you! It’s so good to see you!”

“I’ve missed you too. You should know that I’ve been thinking about asking you to come over here many times but I wanted to give you time.”

“Time for what?” she asked. Erik hesitated. He thought about Paul. He didn’t want to spoil the moment. “To let me work?”

“Yes…”

“Well, for what it’s worth, I’ve made excellent progress on my dissertation. It’s looking good and even Mary seems satisfied. She’s also given me some useful hints. Apparently Paul told her a few of his decipherment theories on his visit to Athens, to use her as a sounding board. As a result she had suspected already then that he might have had the tablet in his possession. He wasn’t very careful with what he said; not a very good criminal, bless him. She had reasoned that some of the things he had said didn’t make sense unless he had been able to read a bilingual text. I suspect that’s why she warned you about him.”

“Perhaps… I can’t believe you told her about the photo of the tablet!” Erik said with disbelief and a hint of repulsion. “Can we trust her?”

Emma was surprised. “Weren’t you the one who trusted her when she said Paul could not be trusted? You defended her then; what’s changed? She even proved to be right about Paul; or very likely so! And besides, she would never tell the police. She’s a true academic, just like Paul. Almost everything goes in pursuit of science and new discoveries.”

“Not very ethical but I suppose we can’t both be wrong about Mary. I still trust her. She seems an honest person who would stick to her word… Did she know anything else? Had Paul told her anything?”

“No, not according to her. I asked her. She didn’t know for sure that he was up to something until I told her about the trail and the photo.”

▪ ▪ ▪

They had the house to themselves when they arrived an hour later. Britt-Marie had gone back home and his parents were still away. He noticed with joy that the fridge had been restocked and the house cleaned in the couple of hours he had been away. Probably Britt-Marie’s doing, he guessed.

“Would you like some coffee or tea?”

“Mmm yes, tea please! Can we take it in the library? The lovely chair in there has featured in my dreams over the last few weeks! I can’t wait to sit in it in front of the fire again.”

Erik laughed at her and carried a tray with tea and some homemade buns which Britt-Marie had left behind. Her love of Torpa amused and pleased him. It reminded him of Anna. More than ever he felt like kissing her there and then. He lit the fire and they sat together on her favourite chair, listening to the flames spitting and cracking, drinking their tea and talking about their pleasant and unpleasant shared experiences – all with some connection to the godforsaken Torpa tablet.

“I have to say that although with hindsight I probably shouldn’t have started the search for the half tablet all those months ago, I can’t say that I regret it, even despite Paul’s sticky situation. At least I met you!” Erik looked at her. She stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. In a reflex reaction he took her hand and held it against his cheek for a split second before slowly releasing it. “Erik, you should know that you’ve become very important to me.” With this she walked over to the bookshelf with the journals and reached out for the journal covering the year 1976.

“Have you looked in this properly? This was the year when your grandmother, or whoever it was, must have uncovered the tablet in the chest in the space in the wall. It could give some clues as to where it was hidden. It must have happened two or three months after you were born, so around December of 1975. Now that we know this more exact timing it should be easier.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ve actually read through the whole thing, if that’s what you mean.”

“You should, starting now if you don’t mind. I would love to myself but my Swedish still isn’t great.”

“Not far off though!” he laughed, referring to her undoubted linguistic ability. Whilst she went to find her laptop so she could start work on her dissertation, he did as she had suggested and started to go through the thick collection of journals of 1976 from the start. He quickly realised that it was even more boring than the earlier ones, merely book keeping, a record of purchases and income, as well as assets and liabilities. Obviously, he didn’t find the same gruesome comments about death-count that he had found in the journals from the middle ages, just plain numbers and short descriptions. There was nothing of interest at all, although he noted that the estate was in excellent economic health.

It had been nearly an hour since he had started to look through the journals. He was nearing the end and was on the brink of throwing the book in the fire in a fit of rage due to its boring content when he suddenly spotted a thin bit of paper tucked between a couple of the fragile pages. Someone had cut out an article from the local paper and stuck it in there. The paper had gone a bit yellow from age but was still intact. The article was brief and had the title
‘Has he found the escape route from Torpa?’
It proclaimed that a local plumber had found an historic relic during works to equip the estate with new drain pipes. What he had found was believed to be the entrance to the old escape route leading from the house to the other side of the smaller of the two lakes on the estate. It had been mentioned in history books and was known to have been built for the purpose of serving as an escape route if the estate’s defenders had to surrender to their enemies, the Danish, hundreds of years before. The article continued saying that following the find the entrance had quickly been covered up again. It said that lack of funds had made any excavation of the old underground tunnel impossible and it was too dangerous to leave open as it was as the tunnel was unstable and liable to collapse. Erik was surprised at this, given what he had just seen in the journals – the estate’s economy was good. He was also surprised that although he had grown up on the estate and had spent all his life there, he had never heard any mention of an underground passageway. It had been forgotten or ignored but either way must have fallen into oblivion.