Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  “Vous connaissez mon père?”

  “You know my father?” That one was easy no, trouble at all to translate.

  “Bien sûr, dans ce domaine qui n'a pas, Jean Renaud capacités sont légendaires. Elle est due à sa réputation et mon respect que je vous faire une offre, laissez ces incompétents maladroit, et accepter un poste dans mon entreprise. On peut utiliser une personne de votre talent exceptionnel.”

  “Of course in this field/area/domain, who hasn’t? Jean Renaud’s capabilities are legendary. It is due to his reputation and my respect that I make you an offer. Leave these bumbling/clumsy incompetents/idiots, and accept a position in my company/enterprise. We could use a person of your exceptional talents.

  Concentrating on his lemon and peach sorbet, Peter tried to stay calm while considering what he had just learned. Lampie, ahh Lampie. So her first name was Yvette and he was surprised to find that she spoke French fluently, and with a Parisian accent no less. This was very curious. Then there was the fact that Mr Wallace, by his own admission, was acquainted with her father. The job offer was also interesting, though the fact that Wallace considered Sid a moron was less so. Anyone with any sense who had spent any time with Sid would rapidly come to that same conclusion.

  “J'ai actuellement un contrat avec cette expédition, je vais devoir examiner mes options.”

  I currently have a contract with this expedition I will have to consider my options.” Good girl Yvette! Stick in there, nice name by the way. Despite the situation Peter found himself trying to compose a simple verse in medieval french to a fair Yvette of the sparkling eyes. His concentration at rhyme crumbled as the conversation continued.

  “Certes, Mlle Yvette Lampierre vous pouvez avoir aussi longtemps que vous le souhaitez.”

  Certainly Miss Yvette Lampierre you can have as long as you wish/want/desire.

  Now that last part piqued his curiosity more so than the rest. What was so crucial about getting Lampie on board for whatever Wallace was planning? Also considering what Peter now knew of Wallace’s business, why was it the antiquities dealer held Lampie’s father in high regard? Was it business or personal? Then on that same vein, why the semi private conversation in French? He had a fair idea Sid wouldn’t have a clue since he was still sitting there munching through desert with an inane grin on his face. But was it also an oblique offer to an English archaeologist to change sides? If so, could he get to the journal? Well what if he could, would it make any difference to the end result? Sid wasn’t sharing, why should Wallace? He’d gained a little knowledge from probing – time to up the stakes.

  He drained his glass and pointed to the distinctive Australian landscape he’d noticed earlier. “Mr Wallace, I am afraid I cannot pretend to know much about Australian landscape painting but that painting on the wall over there is particularly striking.”

  Wallace gave a slight smile, hinting of satisfaction and nodded benevolently. “Yes, that is a recent acquisition of which I am particularly proud. It was a very difficult item to acquire. Tell me, ahh Peter, are you aware of the artist, Albert Namatjira?”

  Peter really didn’t like Wallace using his first name. It smacked of an intimacy he hadn’t offered and didn’t welcome. Still, play the game, as Bartleby would say. He shook his head. “No, I am afraid not. I’ve not had much of a chance to visit your nation’s splendid galleries.”

  “A great pity. Albert Namatjira was an aboriginal artist, living near Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. His skill at interpreting and rendering the Outback is now considered unique and extraordinary. Note the vivid wash of colours that portray the bands of rock against the stark white of the gum trees.”

  “Mr Wallace I have to agree with you. It is a stunning piece – an amazingly good copy.”

  The ambience of the table plummeted like the arrival of the Ice Age. Mr Wallace’s face had acquired a similar icy edge. “Mr Wilks I am not in the habit of acquiring ‘copies’. This is an original Namatjira. I am only after singular pieces of significant history or beauty. There isn’t a part of my collection that is not vetted or verified by the best experts in their fields.”

  If that wasn’t supposed to put him in his place what was it supposed to do? Peter dabbed his lips with the napkin and gave a half bow. “Forgive me Mr Wallace. I did not mean to offend. As I said earlier today, art is not my field, more artefacts and metalwork. If you had a twelfth century church chrism or coinage I could give you a provenance and possible origin.”

  He then gave a rueful grin and shrugged. “I fear that anything painted later than the sixteen hundreds is all modern to me.”

  Mr Wallace graced him with a less wintry smile and the temperature of the room seemed to rise a few notches. “Well Peter, if I come across any medieval ecclesiastical silver, I will have to bear you in mind.”

  Normally Peter would have been terrified by drawing attention to himself like that. Between life at Skaze and crocodiles, he was acquiring a very cavalier attitude to risk. However that social faux pas was anything but careless. He certainly wasn’t going to forget the last time he saw that particular Namatjira painting. It had been hanging on the wall of the study of the Dean of the Skaze Commerce faculty. Its presence here meant one of three things and the first two he didn’t want to consider, because if they were true, he was, as Lampie would say, in the ‘deepest shit’.

  During his limited time at Skaze, he’d become adept at picking up on rumours and gossip. The best spot to do this was around the espresso cart in the faculty foyer. Now those in the know spoke frequently regarding the art machinations of the Dean of Commerce. He was considered, especially by himself, as a consummate collector of high end Aussie art, and to date had never been known to willingly part with anything. So for that painting to be on this cruiser, the Dean would have had to accept an insane amount of money or a swap. Either way Mr Wallace would have had to get up close and personal with the Dean and the possibility of a connection between their current host and protector and anybody from Skaze was a very grim and unsettling thought.

  At this point, discretion and self preservation stepped in, and Peter making some vague illusions to old maladies, asked if he could cadge a lift back to shore. Sid, being Sid, made the usual cracks about ‘Bali Belly’ while Lampie frowned with concern or maybe dismay. Mr Wallace personally escorted him to one of the moored tinnies. Mr Wallace personally escorted him to one of the trailing tinnies. He offered Peter a cabin on the cruiser if Peter was finding life at the dig site trying. So the offer had been made to the third member of the team. Peter played up his malady and gave back a thankful reply about being a poor guest at present and taking up the generous offer in the morning.

  He made it to the shore just in time and finally staggered onto the beach four paces before dropping to his knees and as the Aussies put it, ‘chundering’ his guts out. He shook his head in an effort to clear the last of the taste, all the time trying to ignore the unhelpful ‘helpful’ suggestions from the boat’s crew. That would have to be the among the worst dining experiences he’d ever had in Australia, up there with the thrown together Sunday roasts that he had endured at ‘Chez Sid’ in Canberra. In prior times it had always paid to be well lubricated before dinner. That way you didn’t notice what road-kill recipe got served up. After a brief time the worst was past and still trembling, he pushed himself up. What the flipping hell had he gotten himself into? He really shouldn’t have been surprised that Sid had ratted him out – again – the miserable two-faced Aussie… Words failed him right now and he couldn’t think of anything that quite expressed his feelings. There had to be something in the Aussie lexicon more repulsive in implication and sexual practice than ‘cane toad’. Suppressing a mounting urge to rip Sid’s head off, Peter pushed to regain a modicum of control and face facts. Sid had done the dirty on him! Yes, well that was that. Now it was time to move on and, as those characters in Animal House said ‘Don’t get mad! Get even!’ Right now he had to figure out what had been going on and how Mr
Wallace was involved and most of all try and figure out a way of avoiding an immediate and unpleasant future. There was only one solution, time to crack Sid’s laptop – Slyme Crescent here we come!

  Chapter 26 Deceit at Deception Bay

  Bloody Sid! That slimy east coast weasel – screw him! How dare he hand all their work over just like that! She should have broken his arm as soon as all this crap started! They’d slugged it out here for two solid weeks, held together by the promise of ‘treasure’ and all the cargo that came with that magically alluring word. Lampie had only gotten into the warm up stage and was about to launch into a more graphic description complete with a long list of impossible anatomical feats that he should try. The merest hint of the first phrase would have had her mother racing for the proverbial soap and brush. Though Lampie may not have admitted it, that image and memory served as a brake, halting the flow. Instead she hissed with anger in tempo with the muted throb of the outboard motor heading back to her ketch.

  What the hell was Sid playing at? She had it all prepared to see Fenton off when Pete pulled that really amazing trick and it was all sorted. Then… then Wallace had conveniently popped into view and Sid had been so bloody grateful. The slobbering little whelp had almost drooled all over their rescuers’ boots! Freck how disgusting! After that it was just as Peter had warned. Within a few hours the whole excavation had been taken over – Wallace’s crew helping out, with his ‘assistants’ crawling over everything. While in any of the past excavations along the coast, any aid was usually harder to scare up than a ‘coldie’ and times being what they were, in any excavation she’d ever heard of, help was always gratefully and eagerly accepted. This time the assistance was different. Wallace’s men made her feel uncomfortable. She could have sworn they spent most of their time watching and if she could have found a term to describe it, it was almost as if they were cataloguing both her and the dig. If all that wasn’t confronting enough, to top off a really foul dinner, Wallace had to mention her father! In French! Why did it have to be in French? And Peter had to be there. My freckin’ God, what did he think? Did the English archaeologist understand that Wallace had asked her to join him? Freckin’, freckin’ hell – how embarrassing! Not that their visitor and now patron didn’t speak some commonsense. His assessment of Sid was spot on the money!

  ‘Laissez ces incompétents maladroit.’ Say what you will about the snootiness of the French – for insults it was a wonderfully expressive language when describing an idiot or moron! A better one could have been; ‘Tu es betes comme tes pieds’ – ‘You are as smart as the bottom of your feet.’ Now that was a perfect phrase for Sid. The difficulty was that the brief discussion in French instantly brought all that family separation business flooding back – the arguments, the fights and the years of mama dearest trying to make her sweet Yvette over into her own self absorbed image and Papa watching coldly in the background with his own plans. Why did it have to be French!

  There must be some dreadful mental switch that automatically engaged when the neurons sparked between thoughts of her mother, the use of French and THAT finishing school. Immediately French entered the conversation, her memory switched into full recall mode of that horrendous year, replayed in full glorious colour and featuring choice highlights, staring that arch bitch Bloody Melanie Danningworth-Jones. Just the lingering slimy touch of that memory made her want to throw her old tormentor into a saltie infested creek. Melanie, for those fortunate enough never to have met her, was the self proclaimed queen of ‘cell block D,’ as they called their boarding house. She had the distinction of being mistress of fashion and terror in equal measure. That girl was a true master of ‘criminal’ psychology and that didn’t mean she understood the ‘criminal mind’. She was in fact an expert proponent of leverage, innuendo and threat. Within a few minutes of meeting anyone she’d have a working model of how to use their unique weaknesses to her advantage. As any exponent of the mental martial, arts she had her favourite weapons. The two most readily to hand were dress sense and plumage, though physical attributes and imagined defects came a close second.

  A brief review of her daily operational routine would serve as an example of the power and terror she wielded. The morning would be spent in a useful reconnoitre, sorting the vulnerable from the competitors. Then having toted up the scores by recess, Melanie would begin her campaign, starting with off the cuff innuendoes, perfectly designed to sow doubts and uncertainty in regard to selection of attire, makeup, and/or posture. The worst of it was that dear Melanie was such a practiced adept at pointed slander that her most casual glance could render damning comment and have you scrabbling for a mirror. The trick worked every time, leaving her victim in distraught tears, scurrying off to repair the dreadful fashion faux pas. That was, as with most successful scams, only the first stage. The second was even more demeaning as Melanie, proceeded to convince you that fashion and social survival lay in her hands. Nothing like a gratefully grovelling victim, who would profusely thank her for taking their best silk camisole. ‘Which of course totally ruined any attempt at an ensemble, darling!’

  Lampie tried not the think about that year of persecution and the path she had followed since. She had enough mental angst working with an idiot like Sid. Being here in the Kimberleys was one result, while a loathing of the ‘Melanies’ of the world was another. If she looked for a more positive spin, it had stiffened her resolve not to give into emotional blackmail. Perhaps her mother should have recognised that trait then maybe it would have saved a great deal of pointless conflict and certainly a lot of pain.

  She gave the estuary a long probing scan with her torch before rowing to her ketch. Several times a day she patrolled this stretch between the water and their camp, looking out for the telltale marks of salties. That incident with Peter last evening had been embarrassing and not just because of Sid and Rob’s lack of help. There shouldn’t have been a saltie here, not even a smallish one. This wasn’t a favoured habitat, since the stream was only deep enough during the ‘wet’ to support decent prey. The guys in Derby and Broome reckoned that croc numbers had been increasing along the coast and this might suit an enterprising adolescent like the one that had a go at Pete. Damned if she knew where he’d come from though.

  Satisfied, Lampie swung up her rifle and clambered up the ladder. As usual she began her nighttime ritual, checking the solar panels were free of dust and bird shit, and then checking the battery levels before switching on the radio for the weather report. Nothing happened. Suppressing the urge to thump the temperamental instrument, she pulled out a small spare torch clipped next to the instrument panel and cracked open the waterproof panel to go over all the vulnerable connections. Lampie cursed softly as she snagged a finger on a loose screw. She should have had this overhauled at Broome over a month ago, another service put off to satisfy Sid’s desperate mania to survey this coast. What the freckin’ hell! It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the problem. Some bloody interfering moron had broken several of the connectors, while the network junction for the portable satellite was stuffed. What the hell had happened? Then she remembered that Peter had asked if he could plug his laptop into Bast’s system to check his emails. That stupid ham fisted Pom – he’d ruined the communication system! Bloody idiot, she’d even explained how to plug everything in!

  Lampie grabbed her rifle and torch and climbed back into the RIB. It was only a few yards to the shore but damned if she wanted to be croc bait! She was going to sort this out now. That ignorant Brit was going too learn that it didn’t pay to damage her beautiful Bast! Her anger had such a grip that it wasn’t until she almost tripped over the junk outside Bluey’s tent that she realised the campfire was smouldering ashes. Where the hell was everybody? Uncle Bill and Rob were always by the fire this time of night swapping yarns, while Bluey’s discordant snores provided a melodic backdrop. Sid was back at the Wallace luxury liner but the rest should be here. They must have finished that barbeque by now. What the bloody hell w
as going on? Lampie felt the hairs on the back of her arms prickle and instinct prompted her to quietly flick the bolt of the .303, chambering a round. Keeping the safety on, she silently paced through the camp, stepping over the accumulated clutter of the excavation. There was a dim light spilling out from Sid’s tent and, as she knew, the leader of the dig was afloat a couple of hundred metres away. This was the last thing she needed tonight! Was it one of Wallace’s men in there going through their stuff? Maybe it was that Yank of his. She didn’t trust him one little bit. On the site every time she turned around he was always watching. Whoever they were, they were going to regret it! Bringing the rifle up to her shoulder, Lampie slipped closer, gently easing each foot down and slipping into hunting mode, she didn’t step on anything noisy. At a metre away from the front flap she took a deep breath, stepped into the entrance and swung her rifle in line with the back of the hunched figure at Sid’s worktable.

  “Don’t bloody move, you freckin’ arsehole or I’ll blow a hole in you big enough to…”

  The shadowed figure froze and slowly raised its hands in the air. “Ahh don’t shoot, don’t shoot. I can explain!”

  That was a recently familiar voice. Ahh Christ, it was only Pete! She eased out of her tense stance and dropped the rifle with a loud sigh of relief. “Vous Anglais bête sanglante!” Oh shit that came out in damned French! Damn Wallace! She tried again, calmer and slower. “You dozy Pom, I could’ve shot you! What do you think you’re doing?’

  Peter had spun around and put his hands up. She must have startled him. He looked twitchy and nervous. Lampie swung the rifle back over her shoulder and stepped forward into the dim light of the tent. Peter took a half step and shifted to stand between her and the table.

  Memories of earlier events of the evening intruded and she frowned. “I thought you were sick with stomach cramps? You’re lookin’ pretty well for a bloke who’s supposed to be throwing up.”