The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation

by John Paul Davis

  Ben had told her that none of the four books were relevant to the Scillies. Apparently the Raleigh book contained mention of the Santa Estella and the Stone of Fire; she would read it next, she decided. The translations of the Latin chronicle had already helped them enter the mine. The significance of the Aztec book was still to be revealed.

  Her gut instinct told her it could be the most important of the lot.

  Her attention became drawn to an entry dated May 1886, over sixteen years after TF’s trip to Zambia. Livingstone’s disciple had been a young man when he went to Africa; by 1886 he was an adult in his early forties.

  On leaving England a month earlier, his intention had been to return to the continent that thrilled him, though on this occasion the route took him through Spain. Though she was still to read anything connected to Cortés, just seeing the name of her home country was enough to get her excited. TF had visited Spain eighteen years before St Lide’s; the man’s expertise, according to Ben, was on the colonisation of the Americas. In 1904 the man had stumbled upon one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in Europe. Suddenly a new thought entered her mind.

  Where else had he visited before the Isles of Scilly?

  *

  In the grandest bedroom of the Godolphin Estate, Colts held his breath as the physician continued to operate.

  The bullet had already been removed; Colts had been conscious when Danny had done it. The young man, though not a complete rookie, had relied heavily on his guidance.

  Fortunately, only one bullet had needed removing.

  He looked up at the familiar face, knowing he was in the best possible hands. Though a white mask hid much of his round, clean-shaven face, soft green eyes looked down with clear focus from behind large protective goggles. The wound itself was surprisingly clean; the physician confirmed it had not been infected.

  All being well, the worst was now over.

  Colts bit his lip as the original, crudely applied stitches were removed and replaced by new ones, professionally applied in a manner that quickly filled him with fresh optimism and confidence.

  He counted eight stitches in total.

  The physician completed the final one and removed his mask, satisfied.

  “Right. You should be good to go. I shall inform His Grace you are ready to receive visitors.”

  16

  The helicopter made its second descent in the space of an hour on the official helipad at St Mary’s Airport. Despite receiving official permission, the landing didn’t attract attention. As far as Ben could tell, no one had been standing within a quarter of a mile of them.

  Valeria’s boat was moored in the usual place, surrounded by similar vessels on either side. It was unmanned, as Ben had expected, the doors to the lower deck firmly locked.

  The Gibbous Moon was open, the reception, surprisingly, unmanned. While Danny took over the manager’s tasks, he suggested to Ben he should try the North Atlantic.

  Unlike his previous visit, he didn’t recognise either of the barmen.

  As he prepared to leave, he saw Kernow alone at one of the booths. As usual he was dressed in blue denims and smelled of tobacco.

  “You seen Valeria recently?”

  The fisherman looked up from his beer and magazine, partially amused by the sight of Ben’s scarred face and walking stick. “What happened to you?”

  The last thing Ben wanted was a conversation. “Fell over in a mine. Hurt my thigh.”

  Kernow grinned. “Don’t see many mines open round these parts. Take it you been away a few days?”

  “I had a sudden urge to visit Cornwall. It’s really important I speak with Valeria.”

  “Sorry, haven’t seen her since this morning.”

  Ben’s heart skipped a beat. Confirmation at least that she had returned. “What time?”

  “Must’ve been about half past ten. She was on reception in the Gibbous Moon. Seemed a little preoccupied now you mention it.”

  You don’t say. “You speak with her?”

  “Only to say good morning while I ordered my coffee. Always been a most friendly girl.”

  Unless you’re dying in a mine, Ben thought. “I don’t suppose she let slip what her plans were?”

  “Not to me. Funny now you mention it though, her old grandmother was there as well, helping the new waiter. Not often you see her on the island these days.” He broke off to take a mouthful of his beer. “Come to think of it, your cousin was helping her. Did a pretty good job, all things considered.”

  Ben’s heart skipped for a second time. He hadn’t misheard. Chris was still alive.

  Working in an inn.

  “You don’t say.”

  “Where’s he been hiding these last few days? Recovering from the belly ache, ay?”

  Ben hid his true emotions with a grin. “Being honest, I haven’t had a chance to check on him properly since my return. He didn’t say where he was headed, did he?”

  Kernow shrugged. “Sorry, was only there a few minutes.”

  Ben nodded, patted him on the shoulder and left. “Thanks for your time, friend.”

  He hurried back to the Gibbous Moon, finding Danny on reception. “Get me the keys to Chris’s room.”

  “Why?”

  “Just spoke to Kernow. Chris was here not seven hours ago.”

  *

  The door was locked; Ben tried knocking and got no reply. Satisfied there was no one at home, he inserted the key and felt it turn slowly in the lock, hearing a familiar noise he remembered from his own room.

  Slowly, the room came into view, unoccupied and recently tidied. Danny entered behind him, his attention falling immediately on the bed.

  “Someone’s been here.”

  “His suitcase is missing.” Ben entered the en suite and checked every drawer in turn. “Check the log. Maybe she included something.”

  They returned to the lobby, Ben joining Danny behind the front desk. Despite the various breakthroughs in technology, Nicholl still used paper and ink for recording and checking ins and outs.

  A recent entry stood out. Chris Maloney. Checked out. 10:36 a.m.

  Ben checked his watch. It was approaching 6 p.m.

  “Who was on reception at the time this was made?”

  Danny entered something into the computer. According to the rota, he was supposed to have been on duty.

  “Possibly Valeria. The only other possibility is a guy called Gary.”

  Ben felt the air being sucked from his lungs. “Can we be sure he checked out? You have CCTV?”

  “Not here; for some reason, Mr Nicholl never liked it.”

  No guesses why, Ben thought, his mind racing. He checked the daybook again. “Whose handwriting is that?”

  “Valeria’s,” Danny said, shuffling through the papers. He saw something new. “Hey, check this out.”

  Ben scanned the latest form, a computer printout with plenty of words and numbers, at the top of which was a name. Chris Maloney.

  At the bottom was a signature.

  “You recognise the signature?”

  Ben recognised it instantly. “Oh my God, that’s Chris’s signature.” He looked Danny in the eye. “Can you tell what time it was done?”

  “According to this, it was printed off at 10:34.”

  “What day?”

  “Today.”

  Ben punched the desk and headed for the stairs. “Give me the key to my room.”

  *

  Room seven was exactly as Ben had left it. It was dark without the light on, cold with the window open, the stale air only partially refreshed by the light gust of a sea breeze.

  He washed quickly in the en suite, doing his best to avoid getting excess water on the wound. Once dry, he switched on his beard trimmer, watching with both pleasure and contempt as large tufts of hair fell from his face into the sink. He dressed in the first clean clothes he found; standing in front of the mirror, his fresh red T-shirt clung snugly to his well-drilled chest and muscular hairy arms. His face looke
d younger, his eyes less drained, his hair waxed and wavy.

  Still handsome, he thought.

  Danny was still on reception when he returned.

  “Any sign of Valeria?” Ben asked.

  “Nope. Clever cow has reordered the entire rota.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning she doesn’t have any shifts for the next two weeks.”

  Ben found Cortés in the bar, drinking a bottle of lager and reading a hardback book. Not for the first time, he seemed irritated.

  “Valeria’s been here; one of the locals saw her not seven hours ago. My cousin was with her. He’s still alive.”

  Cortés glanced up from his book, his hands remaining perfectly still. “If she was here seven hours ago, she is here no longer.”

  Ben struggled into the seat opposite Cortés and checked around for signs of life. As usual the bar wanted for customers; a steady breeze blew in through the open windows, causing the curtains to ripple and inviting in the sounds of the harbour. The barman was clearly elsewhere.

  “Danny showed me the register,” Ben resumed. “Valeria was here on reception at 10:30. She was there for Chris to check out. I’ve seen the form; it’s definitely his signature.”

  “As I have told you before, they left hours ago.”

  Ben leaned forward in his seat, sprawling his arms across the wooden table. “St Mary’s is a big island. Her boat is in the harbour; it’s in the exact same place it normally is. We know for a fact she returned to the lighthouse; you found my cousin’s T-shirt. For all we know, they could still be on the island.”

  Cortés turned a page of his book and inserted a bookmark before closing it. “You must be tired, Professor. I cannot blame you; recent days have been most troubling. Why don’t you return to your lodgings and rest a while? Perhaps in an hour or two you will be able to plan with better judgement.”

  Ben hammered his clenched fist down on the table, causing the lager to fizz. “How the hell can you speak of sleep at a time like this? For all we know, she’s currently at the airport, sleeping upstairs or waiting for a goddamn ferry. I didn’t come all this way across the world just to sleep in that same godforsaken bed.”

  “Have you checked any of these rooms?” the Spaniard asked. “Because both suggestions are far more plausible than your previous one. If the slimy eel wished to continue on her journey, do you honestly think she would risk a vessel so small in a sea so choppy? Or instead return by plane to the place she so recently departed?” He shook his head, his eyes displaying a look of intellectual superiority. “We must face facts: seven hours is ample time for her to slip the net.”

  “We have firm proof she was here. I heard it from the fisherman who found my ancestor’s boat. Even said he saw all three of them here before lunchtime. He thought she was looking slightly uncomfortable.”

  “He said nothing of her plans?”

  “No. He never asked.”

  “Then she has left.”

  Ben was desperate to offer a counter argument, concerned Cortés was correct. “Okay. Suppose you’re right. The airport only connects to Land’s End and a few other places in England; presumably she used the one at Land’s End or Penzance after leaving Godolphin. We still have no idea what she did with Colts’s van.”

  “So you agree there are several possibilities?”

  “Either way, we know she returned. The ferry port only connects with Penzance. Now you may disagree, but why would somebody who doesn’t want to be found leave Cornwall only to fly or sail back the same day? The sensible thing to do would be to instruct her grandmother to come to her.”

  “Very well. Then what of your own relative?”

  Ben knew he would be unable to provide a convincing answer. It was a question an hour earlier he would have been grateful for the opportunity to answer, yet one he now feared to even think about. Valeria had killed a man in cold blood, but did that really make her a threat to Chris? Though he knew nothing could be ruled out, he still couldn’t get his head around the possibility that somebody’s personality could change so much so quickly. Had he been wrong about her the entire time? Had she been playing him for a fool?

  The more he thought about it, the less sure he felt.

  “Look, I don’t have all the answers right now. If Chris was knocked out, for all we know he remembers nothing of what happened to him. If Valeria kidnapped him, he may be acting under duress.”

  Cortés laughed. “You suspect a gun was brandished in his face?”

  “No, but I’d love to hear your expert opinion on the matter.”

  “I noticed a strange smell pervading from the cellar. It reminded me of a poison I unfortunately encountered in my youth. I forget its exact name. Only that it is known to cause blackouts.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “You think he was drugged . . . could that also have caused the food poisoning?”

  Cortés pushed his book and drink to one side, allowing himself room to gesture. “The slimy eel is cunning. Treachery runs through her blood. To an outsider, unaccustomed to the politics of her upbringing, ignorant of the tales of her ancestors, the story of her education would make little sense. It would be unfair of me to assume too much of you, nor sensible of you to assume it of yourself. If your relative became trusting of her charms, he may remain ignorant of her true intentions. Even now, who knows what kinds of lies she may be feeding him?”

  “For what purpose? If she kidnapped him, why go to all the bother?” Ben asked. “You think she intended to blackmail me? Tell me to give up my share of the treasure?”

  “Speculating on the matter is useless – not to mention unnecessary. If she can use others to her advantage, she will not hesitate to do so. If he proves himself surplus to requirements, well . . .”

  Ben was concerned; he had already seen what she had done to Nicholl.

  He left his seat and limped his way through the bar. He was desperate for a drink but knew any form of alcohol could severely impair his performance.

  He entered the lobby. “Danny, get me a coffee, will you? Black, two sugars.”

  He saw Danny nod as he spoke on the phone. Leaving him, he returned to the bar and sat down, his eyes planted firmly on Cortés.

  The book was lying closed beside his beer. It had a well-preserved brown cover that carried the smell of untainted leather. Ben opened it and began flipping through the early pages, stopping at the beginning of the narrative. The book was handwritten; he dated it to the 1500s.

  “Díaz?”

  “You understand Spanish?”

  “I teach European history at an Ivy League school.”

  Cortés retook possession of the book and opened it to the page he had recently read. “Forgive me, I do not make a habit of sharing heirlooms with strangers.”

  “No, you just take them instead.” Ben fished through his jacket pocket and retrieved TF’s original diary. There were minor scuff marks along the seam, but otherwise it appeared in good condition.

  “It’s funny, really. This thing survived for a century in a cocoon of silt and you couldn’t keep it clean for two days.”

  Cortés glanced at the diary. “Reading that will do you no good now. It is the earlier one you require.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Do you not read what is directly in front of you?” He snatched the book out of Ben’s hands and flicked through the pages, stopping close to the end. Ben remembered that several pages had been removed, prior to where TF had made notes and diagrams of Godolphin.

  He recalled what he still remembered. There had been over twenty pages of writing in total, the earliest concerning TF’s first visit to St Lide’s: the discovery of the graves, the strange tavern that was open on a Sunday, and the bizarre conversation he had with the young lad named Sam.

  The subsequent pages concerned his second visit. Sam and Alfred Slater had welcomed him warmly on his second arrival before taking him on a tour of areas he had not properly explored the first time. He had set up
base at the Gibbous Moon and chartered a boat from the owner, apparently named Pryce. Pryce, he thought, glancing at the locked cabinet that had once contained the Devil’s Cup.

  Maybe Nicholl had lied about the absence of old records.

  The first week of his return had largely centred on his investigations into the symbols on the gravestones. Other days had been spent investigating the graveyard on St Mary’s, leading him to the Godolphin Mausoleum and beneath the Star Castle.

  Ben had seen enough evidence himself to authenticate the claims. Because certain pages were missing, it was unclear whether or not TF had ever possessed the five replica emeralds. Only that his drawings of the Godolphin estate confirmed he had stumbled on the final location.

  Cortés directed him to the final page. “There are pages missing here. I suggest you read this.”

  Ben retook possession of the diary and began to read.

  And having spoken to the learned gentleman, whose opinions on the matter have been of great value to me since the day of my second arrival, I found myself in an oasis of thought as I at last began to accept the possibility that answers to recent questions, as well as a great many more, may in fact be discovered not only beyond these islands on which I have in this last fortnight concentrated my search but outside England itself.

  Since returning to the isles, I have thus far concentrated my focus, as I believe any in my position would do likewise, only on locales known most intimately to the islanders; how else, I asked myself, if indeed a great galleon did deposit such riches here, could such treasures be carried to any other part of the world unless later transported there by more modern means?

  The story of the enigmatic Catalina, whose very existence to the wider world I still believe to be a most guarded secret, not least by those in her own country, I now understand could be just one link in a long series of chains that date back to the time of her grandfather and his trip to the Americas. Though I am quite certain the great lord himself never set foot on the island that his granddaughter almost certainly chose as the hiding place for much of the gathered belongings brought back from the Americas, I am now perfectly willing to accept that my past mistakes, which I now believe were many in number, are the chief reason to account for recent uncertainty.