Terra Australis Templar (A Peter Wilks Archaeological Mystery)

by Gregory House

  “I refused his offer, that’s all! The rest is personal family stuff. I won’t talk about that!” Why did she feel so angry and ashamed?

  Peter continued to stare at her for a minute or more. She refused to flinch or unbend – family business stayed in the family.

  Then the Englishman slowly nodded his head. “All right, I appreciate that partial confession. Families can create a whole load of problems. Now it’s my turn. For the last few days, and especially when Blinky Fenton turned up, I have suspected Sid of misleading me about the dig. Not only the finds, but also the outcomes. When I brought Fenton to Sid, he was far too laid back and relaxed, not a care in the world. Then our saviour Wallace arrived and Sid wasn’t at all surprised by the rescue and, flip flipper and flipping hell, talk about a grovelling welcome! Archaeologists are usually keen to let people see their work. We’re a vain lot, but that performance was way over the top! During the dinner, Wallace kept on grilling me about the dig, and my reason for being here, as if he were checking. That was odd since Sid should have already have told him everything during their stroll.”

  Lampie quickly reviewed the day. Now she considered it, Sid hadn’t done his usual spin, like he did for one of the managers of Lavost Exploration or one of the admin bods from the museum. Usually he pulled them all over the dig to inspect every single fragment and emphasised the enormous importance and sheer effort required, not to mention the cost, always with her tagging along as eye candy. With such an obviously wealthy backer you’d have thought that Sid would have dragged all of them along for professional reinforcement. The latest question was why not?

  “Alright I’ll give y’ that. Sid’s a low life scum and as two-faced as a pollie. So what?” Lampie was getting really angry. Sid had been deceiving her and Peter was disillusioning her. Between the two she wasn’t happy, not at all, and now all fame and fortune from the dig was vanishing like pixie dust.

  “Well, given what we know about Sid’s aversion to the truth, don’t you think it’s a trifle odd that all of a sudden he thinks of an old mate who debunked his last great archaeological claim and then drags him out here for a possibly early colonial or age of discovery dig?”

  Lampie set to thinking on that. Now it was said aloud in the open, it sounded a bit fishy. Peter was an awfully convenient expert for a find that no one in their right mind would even suspect existed. Yeah, that was bloody strange, almost prescient of Sid. While she was mulling over that little conundrum, Peter beckoned her closer to the worktable and pointed at the open laptop.

  “Sid’s been a very busy chap. According to his eBay record, six weeks ago he received fifteen thousand for this little piece. As the description says:

  Recovered from a shipwreck off Indonesia, this authenticated Song Dynasty vase is available with a complete provenance. This piece has all the classic hallmarks of an earlier Zun Kiln item of the highest order, in the heavy infusion of bubbles in the glaze, the high shine and the slight crudeness of form, which in the later period would have been more finely modelled. The Song Porcelain Masters were well known for their experimentation with various new glazing techniques (some starting in the earlier Tang Dynasty), and only the high levels of skill and patience produced the finest pieces, and some of the finest glazes, ever to have been produced. Open handles with moulded appliqués of a dragon and a Buddhistic figure, with flower above, is on both sides.

  Peter then clicked on a series of images. An attractive deep blue glazed vase with three looped handles flashed into view on the screen and several shots scrolled through all the angles, including a couple of detailed pics of a stylised figure on the front. To Lampie it was the dead spit to the fragmented one in the trench by the chest they’d found today.

  “That’s a trifle peculiar isn’t it? I mean, you hadn’t discovered this site until three weeks ago, right? Do you think Sid found this one off an Indonesian wreck?”

  Lampie tried not to squirm at more evidence of Sid’s foreknowledge of this site’s finds. Desperate for some time, she shot out the first question that came to mind. “How do you know its Sid who sold it?”

  Peter Wilks gave her a glance that could only be interpreted as ‘Please, do I look like the village idiot?’, then brought up another couple of screens. Lampie tried not to wince as he adopted his ‘Pommie lecturer’ tones. “This is his details page on eBay. As you can see, it has Sid’s address, and if we do a quick search of his My Pictures folder, we find all the other photos as well as another dozen or so that he decided weren’t up to scratch.”

  As evidence went, it was pretty damning. Her erstwhile friend, Sid, was lower than a snake’s arsehole and somehow had tripped across a valuable piece, no doubt from one of the coast scourers down at Broome. Frisky Fischer was a good possibility. Sid and he went way back and Frisky was frequently warned off the pearling leases up by Brecknock Harbour, north of here. He’d sell anything he came across, including his grandmamma’s bones, except that the old dear knew the reputation of her wayward grandson and had been cremated to avoid that fate. Or so ran the story around the pub. Lampie frowned and glared at the Englishman. Reluctantly she conceded. “That’s one point I’ll give you. What about Wallace?”

  Peter Wilks returned his attention to the laptop screen and his left hand skimmed across the keypad. “If we have a look at the buyer of the vase, it’s listed as Karartha Enterprises, with an address on the Gold Coast. I can’t go any further there until I plug into a sat system and do a search. However if we look at Sid’s emails, we find the start of correspondence with Messer Wallace around the day you called me.”

  It had been building up to this. Deep down Lampie knew it already. Remembrance of the years of friendship had been the last flimsy bastion that shielded her from the truth. She’d been lied to and done over by Sid. The evidence trail led straight back to him, and oh boy, was he going to get his, once her insides stopped churning like a cement mixer. So fact was fact. Get over it – there was a more important question. “All right Sid’s guilty as sin and he probably did in Colonel Mustard with the fire poker in the library. So what do we do about it?”

  That at least got a smile from Peter who was beginning to look less strained. Great, at least one of them felt better. She was so pleased – yay!!

  “Okay Lampie. Well, I have exactly zero faith in Sid or his new benefactor, Wallace, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to charter your ketch for the next week, so long as we get out of here really soon! I must say I am getting a trifle weary of the local wildlife always turning up to have a munch on me. Sooner we’re gone the safer I’ll feel.”

  Well hell yeah, that sounded like a great idea. Why stick around and play happy families? Wilks did have a good point about all the critters who’d wanted a bite of him. That went past odd and into the realm of freakin’ weird. Yeah he was right. They could scoot south and be back in Broome in a few days and Pete’d be good enough company if he was dosed up with a carton of seasick pills.

  “Yeah, sure Peter. Better than hanging around here.”

  Wilks let out a sigh of relief and pulled out a memory stick from the laptop. “Great I’ll get my pack.”

  Then practicalities as is their wont, impacted on desires. Lampie held up her hands to stop the imminent stampede. “Whoa Pete, no rush. We can leave in a three or four hours.”

  “Why not, now Lampie? It would be really, really good to leave immediately!” Wilks turned pale. That may have sounded a bit strange in the near dark of the tent, with only the laptop screen for illumination, but somehow he managed it. She shook her head. That just wasn’t going to happen – what did he think this was, a taxi service from Piccadilly Circus?

  “Pete, it’s high tide then and we can easily motor out on Bast, no worries. We’ve got lots of time to pack.”

  “You’re sure there isn’t a way to tow or drag the boat out Lampie? If we’re going, immediately is better than later, because I do not feel like waking up after a snooze and finding piranhas nibbling on my toes!”
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br />   “Give over Pete – we don’t have any piranhas! I can’t change the tide and Bast is too large to tow out for at least two hours. Unless you’d like to ask Wallace for a loan of a few tinnies and his assistants?”

  “Ahh no, not in the least. I suppose we can wait.” If she wasn’t suspicious before, then that nervously reluctant answer tipped the balance. Pete was bloody keen to get out of here and that triggered a return of her wariness and, linking it with an earlier missed comment of his, Lampie did her own deductions.

  “Hey hold on! Why are y’ so eager to leave all of a sudden? Why immediately, Pete?”

  Peter’s face acquired a pinched and clenched look, as if he’d bitten a lemon. “I said before I no longer trusted Sid. He cancelled our contract over dinner remember. Now he has his new friend Wallace. Somehow I don’t think I’ll survive the next visiting native beastie.”

  Lampie frowned at that. Yeah, sure it could be dangerous here. She’d got that message. Then a fact about the recent charter offer surfaced. Suspicion was a wonderfully prolific plant – it could flower and bloom from just one word or glance. From ready acceptance, Lampie swung back to hostility and glared back at the Englishman. He knew something and he wasn’t keen on sharing it with Sid or Wallace. However it was Lampie who had the means and ability to escape and now she felt a need for further confession. “All right Wilks, I know you’ve found something. Spill it or I’ll leave you here!”

  His non verbal response gave it all away, Peter instantly shifted into what he must have considered an appearance of injured innocence, wide eyed and startled. Lampie frowned and tapped her foot. Get real she wasn’t going to fall for that one twice! It only took a few minutes before he slumped in defeat.

  “All right Mlle Yvette. Yes I know a tad more – this isn’t the only site. Deception Bay was the first landing of an expedition and as we’ve found, the site of a battle. However from that glance I had of Father Joachim’s journal, it mentions two sites north of here, at a large harbour with running fresh water. That, according to the good Father was their main settlement.”

  A strange eager excitement gripped Lampie. Two more sites – she’d bet Sid didn’t know about them! Nor did she remember any of that being chatted over at dinner, or earlier during the mealtime briefings around the campfire. Ho ho, Peter Wilks was proving to be a very sly character for a Pom!

  “These other sites, what do you reckon Peter, are they like this one or larger?” Peter’s inner struggle was plain for anyone to see. Finally he reluctantly spoke. “Well, ahh... They could be larger, ahh maybe?”

  Lampie knew she had the Englishman now. The creasing round his eyes gave away more than he realised. “Pete, what are you holding back? It’s a long, long walk to Derby, full of salties, sharks and snakes and all kinds of friendly natives.” It was just a gently reminder of how far away the first outpost of civilisation was. She could tell the hint annoyed him, but what the hell, she was in a bad mood after all the lying from Sid, Wallace and him. Let Pete sweat it a bit, it’d improve his answer.

  Lampie turned to leave the tent and Peter leapt out of the folding chair and clamped his hand on her shoulder. “Lampie please wait. There could be a lot, several times what we’ve excavated here. I’m not sure, but if Father Joachim is telling the truth, wherever this place is, I think there’s proof of what you have always known, and some items worth a lot more than any treasure to this country, if they still exist.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Bloody hell he was getting cryptic, but was he actually saying he’d found definite proof of a Portuguese settlement? She paused. That wild thought took hold – the impossibility of it, a childhood dream made real! You don’t often get the chance to bring something treasured from your past to life.

  “Are you talking about my coin?” There she’d asked. If that didn’t put her heart on her sleeve, nothing did!

  Peter flinched slightly from her direct gaze. “Yes, and ahh no, possibly a lot more than that.” Bloody hell he could be evasive, talk about tight lipped! After that too brief answer it was her turn to grab him, both hands on his arms. Her fingers could feel the tension thrumming in his muscles, but he made no move to break her grip. “Don’t you come all Times crossword clues on me Peter bloody Wilks. Give me a straight answer!”

  He stared her right in the eye without a tremor. Even in the dim light she could see each fleck of blue in his irises. “No Lampie, I will not! I would walk to Derby on my own, before I say anything here!”

  What did he say? He refused? Walk to Derby – was he mad? Anger at all the deception and betrayal of this night was beginning to build. Didn’t this Pommie know she was a woman living on the edge, no treasure and no pay equals no ketch!

  Then Wilks spoke again in that crisp, clear and firm English accent of his. “I will say nothing until we are away from here. We cannot afford either Sid or Wallace gaining the slightest hint of what I have discovered!”

  “What are you going on about?” What was this, a treasure thriller? Would someone just tell her what all the secrecy was about? It was not as if they were hunting for the Holy Grail!

  “Wake up Lampie! Sid’s already sold this site to Wallace, when he handed over the lacquer box for ‘safe keeping’. Whether he legally can or not is irrelevant. Do you think Sid will stop Wallace if he want s to pick and chose his prizes? You saw Sid at dinner. If he could have licked Wallace’s boots, he would have! Tell me Lampie, am I wrong?”

  Peter kept his stare level and unwavering, eye to eye. Could she say he was wrong – that Sid would defend the site? Well she tried to. “You can’t know that. Wallace turned up and protected us from Fenton. It was a lucky chance!” Oh shit she didn’t just say that. Freakin’ hell, she didn’t believe that coincidence, did she?

  Peter gave a crooked smile and shook his head. “Yes, as I said earlier today, it was a fortuitous happenstance. We appear to have had an abundance of those on this site, haven’t we, what with crocodiles and snakes and convenient discoveries and the rescue from site rippers.”

  That hurt! What a low blow. The Kimberleys was a dangerous place – she’d said so when the Pom had arrived! However her conscience uncurled another inconvenient truth. They had never had so many accidents or problems on any other site before.

  “Come on Lampie, you’re better than that! Haven’t you asked yourself why Sid hasn’t already reported this to the museum down in Perth? This is an official site isn’t it?”

  “Well, ah yeah of course it is. We had the Land Council reps here the other day.”

  This Englishman was damned good at picking weak points and that one was very vulnerable. She’d been hassling Sid for three weeks now to get on to the authorities, especially the museum, their part time clients. As usual he’d blown her off with promises and excuses about unexpected delays or promises that he was waiting on a bit more evidence, but the question was still there. Had they contacted the museum, or not?

  Peter must have noticed her indecision. His face once more broke out into a crooked smile and waved towards Sid’s laptop. “I’ve trawled through his computer system for the past hour. I can’t find any contact with them any more recent than three months ago.”

  The contract, the bloody contract! Damn Sid, the slimy weasel had said they’d had an extension! Laissez ces incompétents maladroit! Wasn’t even close – no wonder Guniyandi Rydell was so pissed off. He must have got suspicious about Sid’s paperwork. Rydell may have been an offensive, up himself bastard she loathed, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t efficient at tracking down problems. As Peter burbled on about how he’d tracked through Sid’s system all the Deception Bay leads, Lampie was wrapped up in a more urgent concern. If Sid had fudged up the permissions with one of his so called mates down in Perth then except for the Land Council paperwork, this site didn’t officially exist. That being the case, Peter was right – all the Deception Bay treasure could up and vanish and no one would be the wiser. Bloody Sid! Lampie caught a few keywords coming from Peter.
It appeared he had moved on from praising his computer detective skills and was now back to history.

  “By my sainted aunt, Lampie this site is as important as Hartog’s plate or Sydney Cove! By now we should have teams of specialists up here, helping with the excavation. We still haven’t found all the bodies or their vessel! This is the oldest western wreck site in the country – well before the Batavia!”

  What was that, an admission? Did he say it was earlier than Hartog in 1616. Now it was phrases like that one that gained her instant attention. To prove without a shred of doubt an earlier landing, that could really make a career and best of all pay for ketch maintenance. A second more damning thought cropped up. Here was Peter Wilks, an Englishman, with very little connection to Australia, except of course his interesting relationship to its native animals. But he was keener to protect a source of early Australian history than her natural born sons. If that wasn’t shameful, what was?

  “Think what that would mean for your country?”

  Peter had whispered that last part and feeling the burning red of deep embarrassment, she dropped his wrists and stepped back. She had to admit she was tempted, very tempted. While they’d been doing the grappling bit, their eyes had locked, not like in those bodice rippers, more like in a face to face struggle. She’d heard about the window of the soul thing at the finishing school when they did drama and English literature. Now when Peter rattled on about walking to Derby or similar stupidity his eye’s had burned with a deep intensity. He actually meant all that guff. Awwh what the freakin’ hell! If she didn’t help him he’d get eaten or bitten by something before he’d travelled fifty yards. Well why not? She was sick of this place anyway. It was getting too crowded, between Wallace’s insincerity, Sid’s ego and at least a dozen assistants. That left barely room to breath.