The Nine Bright Shiners (20 page)

‘It was a book called
Treasures of the Incas,
and there was a section on those that have never been recovered. Two were described in detail, the original Punchao and Cura Ocllo's emerald collar.' She glanced up at him with a smile. ‘I'm not sure how much of this brushed off on you, but the Punchao was a sun image made of gold. Cura Ocllo was the wife of Manco Inca, who went into exile at Vilcabamba.'

‘And the collar?'

‘It was said to be composed of nine emeralds, as large as quails' eggs.'

‘Nine emeralds. I see. Go on.' His large, dark eyes were fixed on her face.

‘Well, that's almost all. But what struck me as strange was that a large pencil bracket had been drawn in the margin, enclosing the whole page, and beside it was an exclamation mark.'

He went on staring at her in silence.

‘I'm sorry if you were expecting something more dramatic,' she said, with an embarrassed little laugh. A waiter appeared and began to lay out their cutlery. The wine was produced, tasted, and pronounced satisfactory. When they were alone again, Jan cast around for some comment to break the growing silence between them.

‘I don't know why I –' but he stopped her with a movement of his hand.

‘You were right, Jan – it is very strange.'

‘Have you any idea what it means?'

‘I believe I have, yes.'

They were interrupted by the arrival of their first course. When it had been served, Jan looked at Miles expectantly. But he picked up his fork and began to eat in silence. Puzzled, she did the same. After several minutes, when he still hadn't spoken, she burst out, ‘Well? Aren't you going to explain?'

‘I'm sorry. I was wondering how to go about it. But since you told me about the book, I'll tell you something. Shortly before Sir Reginald died, I called round to inquire after him. I arrived at the same time as the vicar, and Mary wanted a word with him. She asked me if I'd take her place in the sick-room for a few minutes.'

To Jan's frustration, the waiter approached again to remove their plates. She could have wished the service at Mario's had been less efficient.

‘Yes?' she prompted, as he moved away.

‘Well, he was tossing and turning and complaining about the sunlight, which was shining straight on to his face. I went to draw the curtains, and as I was doing so, he gave a strangled cry. I hurried back to the bed, wondering if I should call Mary, but he reached up and grabbed my hand, staring up into my face. And he said, “You will do the right thing, won't you, Edward? Your father was right, we should never have kept it.” Then he fell back on the pillow and closed his eyes.'

Jan found that her heart was thumping. ‘And that was all?'

‘I said, “Kept what?” and he muttered something that I couldn't catch.'

‘So what did you do?'

‘Well, I didn't want to say anything to Mary. We all knew he was dying, and she was too upset to be questioned. But after the funeral I asked Edward and Rowena about it.'

‘And could they help?'

Miles smiled grimly. ‘They
could
have, but they didn't. At first, they tried to make out the old man had been rambling. Then Rowena flew off the handle and began ranting and raving about it being too early and she hadn't had time to think. And Edward did his stuffy act, pretending he didn't know what I was talking about. Not unnaturally, I lost my temper, and a lot of harsh words were said. It ended in an almighty row, since when, I've been
persona non grata
at Rylands.'

‘But I don't understand. Why should they react like that?'

Miles was silent for a moment, and his next question when it came seemed the height of irrelevance. ‘Are you having your mail forwarded from Australia?'

Jan gazed at him blankly. ‘What?'

‘Your mail. Is it being forwarded?'

‘No, I didn't bother. There's not likely to be anything important. Why?'

‘Because, my dear, something
very
important will be lying on your hall mat right now.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘A letter from your father.'

She went very still. ‘You mean he really did write one?'

‘Almost certainly. I received mine last week. It had been lodged with Father's solicitors, for delivery three months after Sir Reginald's death.'

‘So we were all left one?'

‘That's right.'

Jan felt the colour draining out of her face. ‘About the third expedition?'

He nodded. ‘Until mine arrived, I didn't know any more than you do. But yesterday, Mary said Sir Reginald had withdrawn his to Rowena after your father's death.'

‘And you think that's significant?'

‘Oh, it's significant, all right. It means she knew the contents long before we did.'

Jan said slowly, ‘You said yesterday that you hadn't had a letter.'

‘I know. I didn't want to discuss it in front of Mary.'

‘And did you also receive your father's book?'

He held her eyes for a moment. Then he said quietly, ‘Yes. I'm sorry I lied to you.'

‘You also lied to the police, which is more important.'

‘Not to me it isn't. What my father wrote wasn't intended to be pawed over by the police.'

Their plates were removed, their entrées served, and again they ate in silence. Then Jan said quietly. 'Are you going to tell me what was in the letter?

‘Do you want me to?'

Did she? After all the wondering, now that the answer was within her reach, she was afraid to hear it. It must be momentous indeed, to have been kept secret for thirty years. Did she want to learn it from Miles, over a restaurant table? Or from her father, in words which had been carefully chosen for her alone?

‘I'm not sure that I do. You must think me an idiot.'

‘Not at all. In some ways, I wish I didn't know, either.'

‘If I change my mind, will you tell me later?'

‘Of course But don't worry about it; your father wasn't in as deep as the others.'

Their plates were removed and the dessert trolley wheeled across, but Jan's appetite had gone. The meal which was supposed to have offered a respite had failed abysmally.

Over coffee. Miles said, ‘I suppose you are going back to Australia? Permanently, I mean.'

‘There's nothing for me here.'

‘That's rather up to you.'

Her mouth went dry. ‘All the children's friends are there. They're doing well at school.'

‘What about you?'

She shrugged. ‘It's been my home tor fifteen years.'

‘You'll go ahead with a divorce?'

‘I don't know.' And suddenly, appallingly, she was crying.

She reached blindly for her handbag. ‘Oh Miles, I'm sorry! I don't know what's the matter with me.'

‘It's been an emotional evening, one way or another.'

She was grateful that he made no attempt to comfort her. Nor when they parted at Cajabamba did he repeat his kiss.

Wearily she went upstairs and prepared for bed. Sleep was all she needed, she told herself. Things would be clearer in the morning.

But sleep would not come. Her mind revolved obsessively round the description in the book, Sir Reginald's words, the children's, till they jumbled together in a whirling, confusing spiral, latching on to each other completely out of context.

Should never have kept it. Jewels, shining in the cupboard. Nine flawless emeralds.

She sighed and turned over, and the words melded like a kaleidoscope, coming together in a fresh pattern. Nine emeralds – brightly shining. Nine bright shiners.

Jan sat bolt upright, her eyes flying open. In her mind, she was back in the drawing-room at Rylands, with the children sorting out Christmas cards. And she remembered Julie's childish treble: ‘Nine for the Nine Bright Shiners.' And the crash as Rowena, white-faced with shock, dropped the flower-vase.
The emeralds
? Was there some connection with them?

Think!
she told herself fiercely. What exactly had Miles said about his visit to Cajabamba? That Sir Reginald had complained about the sun in his eyes, and he'd drawn the curtains.
But what were the old man's actual words?
Had he in fact been saying, ‘The Sun! The Sun!' And then, ‘We should never have kept it'?

Had the three of them, on that portentous third expedition, somehow found the missing treasure? Was that what lay behind the pencilled exclamation mark?

Jan got out of bed, slipped on her dressing-gown and started pacing the room. There was no sense in it. The men were respected explorers and archaeologists, not thieves. If they
had
found anything valuable, they'd have handed it to the authorities. How, in any case, could they have smuggled it out of the country? Yet there was something underhand about it. Miles had said: ‘Your father wasn't in as deep as the others.'

She sat down at the dressing-table, her elbows on the cold glass. Suppose, just suppose, that they'd smuggled something out of Peru. What would they do with it? If they'd no legal right to it, it couldn't be insured or deposited in a bank. Where could it be hidden for safekeeping?

In the secret cupboard her father'd used for his wartime transmitters.
That could have been why Edward and Rowena were told; they'd inherited Rylands, and Sir Reginald needed access to it.

Jan straightened, laying her palms flat on the glass and staring at her reflection. So perhaps it was true, what the children had said about a necklace rivalling the Crown Jewels. And the round, gold thing Ben had mentioned, which she'd taken to be a tray: could that conceivably be the priceless missing Punchao? Was it possible that her own children, at home in Rylands, had indeed found the lost treasure of the Incas?

It was over an hour later, when she was at last on the edge of sleep, that an even more startling thought came to her. There'd been nine green sequins on the dead man's jacket. The murderer, too, knew about the Nine Bright Shiners.

It had been an exhausting flight, two European stop-overs followed by a change of plane at Caracas. Though they landed at Lima mid-morning local time, Webb and Jackson's interior clocks thought otherwise, and the plunge into summer after snowy Broadshire increased their disorientation.

They were met by a member of the British Embassy, who escorted them to the hotel where he'd booked them in. He was a pleasant, fresh-faced young man called Kevin Franks.

‘I gather you're interested in Edward Langley?' he said in the car. ‘I hope he's not been blotting his copybook; he's quite a local hero out here.'

‘We only want to talk to him,' Webb said. His left arm was throbbing and swollen after the injections, and he was anxious not to say too much till he could think more clearly.

‘Pretty important talk, to bring you all this way!'

‘Have you been able to trace him?'

‘Yes, a plane went out from Cuzco when the message came through. He was in a pretty inaccessible place, though – a narrow ledge surrounded by forest. They'll have moved on, of course, by the time you get there, but you may well have to be winched down. And there are other complications,' Franks added, almost apologetically. ‘Not only is it bandit country, it's also the centre of terrorist activity, a revolutionary outfit known as the
Sendero Luminoso,
or Shining Path. They're carrying on a permanent battle with the military.'

‘Great!' said Jackson under his breath. The last thing he fancied was being caught in the crossfire out in the wilds somewhere. The brilliant sunshine hurt his eyes, and the scene outside the window seemed garish and unreal. He could do with a good kip, and hoped the Governor felt the same.

The hotel was clean and unpretentious, and they each had a private bath. Jackson, whose ideas of Peru were even less informed than Webb's, was grateful for small mercies.

‘I suggest you have a quiet afternoon,' Franks was saying. ‘Then my wife and I would be pleased if you'd dine with us.'

‘That's kind of you. You mentioned Cuzco; presumably that's our starting point when we set out to see Langley. How far is it from here?'

‘Oh, a fair way – right up in the Andes. We've booked you on the midday flight tomorrow.'

Webb raised his eyebrows. ‘Flight?'

‘Since you're in a hurry, it's much the quickest way. The journey can take a couple of days by bus or train, not to mention the possibility of being stopped by
los terroristas,
or police looking for them. But you'll have to take things easy when you get there. The dreaded altitude sickness is no respecter of persons.' He hesitated, ‘Is there anything you'd like to see while you're in Lima?'

Webb gave him a tired grin. ‘At the moment, the inside of this room looks pretty good to me!'

‘Fine, I think that's very wise. Incidentally, if you do go out, watch out for pick-pockets. We've a terrible problem here with thieving of all kinds. I'd advise keeping your ticket, passport and money with you the whole time, preferably somewhere inaccessible.

‘Well, if there's nothing else at the moment, I'll leave you to have a rest. When you're ready for lunch, there's a good choice of restaurants nearby, or the hotel dining-room's quite reasonable, if you'd prefer that.'

Webb nodded his thanks, but food was the last thing on his mind. He wanted peace and quiet to get his bearings, and when Franks had left them and Jackson gone to his own room, he took out the sketches he'd made of the people in the case. They seemed a long way away now, Miles Cody, Tony Rollo and Lady Peel. He hoped that by the time he saw them again in the flesh, he would know for certain who the murderer was.

That day had the unreality of a dream. Jet-lag and general tiredness blended impressions into a confused medley of heat and colour, of dusty shanty towns and wide plazas, of street stalls selling traditional cheese-filled pasties, and the culture-shock of a Kentucky Fried Chicken.