The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation
Page 82
The spiritual for shopping.
Ben followed Colts’s instructions precisely. After jogging west across the south section of the Plaza Mayor to where the square joined with Calle Santiago, they turned south along Santiago until it joined with Calle Constitución at a crossroads.
Neither road was without its charm. Large numbers of tourists were making their way in both directions along the historic pavement, taking in the sights of nearby advertising boards that hung prominently behind clear glass windows. Like most European cities, the layouts were a celebration of the old and the new. Where once upon a time close-knit groups of hooded friars would have pottered around gardens, tending to chores in between prayers, the modern-day layout combined more recent history with the brand new, where designer names from Zara to Rolex were prominently displayed above ground-floor windows and below high rise terraces that would have been home to the city’s affluent a century earlier.
Ben headed left at the crossroads and followed the road till they reached the midpoint. Colts had told him the theatre entrance would be located just prior to the point where the pedestrian walkway merged with the road.
Even at the late hour there was no shortage of cars heading west along the one-way street.
They stopped where the pedestrian way ended and looked around. Juliet was the first to see the theatre.
“Teatro Zorrilla. There it is.” She pointed at the nearby building.
Ben stood alongside her, observing its features. Unlike the historic buildings that lined the north side of the Plaza Mayor, the theatre’s exterior comprised a grim assortment of dark orange brickwork above a smoother white stone foundation and was capped off by teal-coloured cladding that continued all the way to the roof. The windows on the second and third storeys had all been filled in, their chamfered and milk bottle designs packed with the same cladding as the upper level. Three arched doorways at ground level included a designated entrance.
Juliet entered first, finding herself at the end of a short queue seeking admission to what appeared to be a pop concert.
“I thought this place was a theatre,” Ben said.
“Apparently it does all kinds. Theatre to operatic. Tonight we’re going to a concert.”
“I hope it’s not One Direction. Who is it?”
“Sweet California – The Wonder Tour.”
“Who the hell are they?”
“How on earth should I know?”
Waiting in the queue took merely seconds, the majority of attendees making their way quickly through the lobby. On reaching the front, they were stopped by a smartly dressed usher in his late twenties with a spotty complexion and a hint of a moustache.
Ben wondered if Colts had once had a run-in with his father.
“Hola. Good evening. Your tickets, please.”
“Hi. We don’t have tickets. How much is it?”
“I’m very sorry, the ticket office is now closed.” He pointed to the empty window, the station clearly unmanned.
“Oh no.” Juliet faked devastation. “We just arrived in the city. I really love this group.”
The usher shrugged. “I am very sorry. The ticket office always closes fifteen minutes before the performance begins.”
“Is there no way? I promised her for her birthday,” Ben invented.
Another shrug. “Sorry. There will be a second concert here tomorrow. I suggest you come back in the morning. Ticket office will be open after nine.”
They exited the same way, infuriated. Juliet followed Ben through the exit, her elegant figure casting a long shadow as she passed the nearby street light. A poster by the door confirmed the usher was correct. A second concert was scheduled for the next day – a day too late. They stood to one side as further late arrivals entered through the main doors.
It was fast approaching 9 p.m.
“Now what do we do?” Juliet asked.
Ben exhaled deeply and paced in both directions. In the distance, a duo of jazz musicians drummed out their rhythmic beats before a small enthusiastic crowd, the majority teenagers propped up against the walls of closed retailers, chatting quietly and smoking cigarettes. Closer to the theatre, a dishevelled man with a thick beard, standing with his back to Ben, approached forthcoming citizens with an offer to buy or sell tickets.
Juliet had already made the connection.
She approached the bearded tout. “Hola, si. Dos por favor.”
The tout smiled at Juliet and removed a selection from his jacket. “Where would you like to sit?” The man was suddenly full of charm.
“What do you have?” She followed up in English.
“Tickets are on three levels. You can have the ground floor or the circles.”
“Whatever’s cheapest.” Ben caught them up.
Juliet smiled, faking embarrassment. “Ignore him. Which do you recommend?”
“Ground floor is cheaper. For the view, you cannot beat the rear close to the projector. Tell you what, for you I can do two for sixty euro. Best seats in the house, guaranteed.”
“Wonderful. We’ll take them.” She looked distastefully at Ben. “Pay the man, darling.”
Initially resentful, Ben opened his wallet and passed over sixty euros. Suddenly he remembered it wasn’t his money.
“Gracias,” Ben said. “And for the recommendation.”
Wasting no time, they returned to the main doorway and found themselves at the front of the queue. The usher with the facial hair was still on duty, clearly recognising them.
“Turns out we had a stroke of luck.”
The man smiled politely and accepted their tickets. “Take the stairs and follow the signs to the first floor. Please ensure the curtain behind you is closed during the performance.”
“Gracias.” Ben moved on, taking Juliet on his arm. “I guess this place really is a theatre.”
Hurrying through the lobby, they proceeded across the black tiling to the main stairway. Ben removed his phone from his pocket as he made his way up the identically coloured steps and called Colts’s mobile number as he looked around.
Unlike the building’s tired front, the interior had benefitted from recent refurbishment. The main stairway rose in a zigzag pattern through the centre of the room, protected by glass railings that reflected the brown wood exterior of the surrounding walls. Opposite the actual theatre, several offices were currently unoccupied, their unlit interiors visible behind thick glass. Ben had noticed a sign in the lobby that there were offices and conference rooms available for hire.
They had made it to the top of the stairs by the time Colts answered.
“Colts, we’re in.”
At the other end, Colts grinned. “Well, I guess congratulations are in order. Let me guess, Swan Lake?”
“Not quite. Looks more like Spain’s answer to the Nolan Sisters.”
Colts laughed loudly. “I’m sure you’ll both have a whale of a time.”
“We’re just gonna head to our seats and get comfortable until the performance is underway.” Ben saw a sign for their seats, noticing they were located beyond a velvet curtain. An usher was waiting outside their box. He glared at Ben as if to say ‘turn off your phone’.
“I’m gonna have to cut this one short. Where exactly do we have to go?”
“Been a long time since I was there, Ben; things might have changed since.”
“Look, I have to go. Text me what you remember. I’ll call you when we leave.”
“Don’t forget to enjoy the show.”
Ben hung up and showed the tickets to the usher, who escorted them behind the curtain into their box.
What Ben saw astounded him. Three padded seats were set out on tiled wooden flooring that reflected the nearby wall light like a dining room in a stately home. Beyond the box, a sea of people covered thick red seating, the majority chatting quietly as they waited for the house lights to go dark.
At the front of the theatre, two great curtains draped the stage, the fine material swaying softly below an ep
ic coat of arms that was partially gilded and stood out strongly against a dark backdrop. Similar colourings appeared on the ceiling, where golden patterns were set on a dark grey coating that reflected the house lights. Like most theatres, the structure was supported by an array of strong pillars all painted in a uniform colour.
Juliet smiled widely as she took her seat alongside Ben. True to the seller’s word, the box was located one to the right of the main projector and control room.
The house lights went down, drawing applause from the audience. Juliet felt a twinge of excitement as she anticipated the start.
“This is amazing.”
Ben couldn’t concede any different. Whereas Colts had once seen a dilapidated cinema, the view that now befell them was like something from the Last Night of the Proms.
“So,” Juliet began, “have you thought of a plan?”
“Colts said he’ll text me the details. I just hope I get a signal in here.”
“I hope you have a backup if you can’t.”
“There was a stairway heading down below the lobby; it’s probably somewhere down there.”
“I probably should warn you. They don’t like it when you leave your seat mid-performance. It lets the light in.”
“Well, in that case, let’s hope neither of us needs to use the bathroom anytime soon.”
*
As the limousine with the blacked-out windows made its way up the familiar driveway, Colts tapped away quickly on his phone. Once finished, he waited until the text message was recorded as being sent before returning the phone to his pocket.
His pressing concern was that the major restoration work that had been undertaken since his last visit may have rendered his instructions useless; worse yet, the entrance might no longer exist. He knew the tombs were unlikely to have been destroyed altogether. He also remembered from the last time how the location of the chapel had completely foxed him, how the plethora of artefacts remained hidden below the ground. Finding them had been extremely fortuitous, potentially worth more than a lottery win. Discovering the way in without instructions would be a matter of chance. Still, Ben was an intelligent man, he mused.
In his own way.
As the car pulled up outside his Georgian mansion, Colts got out and headed to the front door. Once inside, he led Chris up the main stairway and into an unlit room on the first floor.
“Been a long time since anybody used this room.” Colts flicked the light switch, the sixty-watt bulb illuminating a dusty area largely filled with books and bookcases, but lacking in storage space for other items. “Most days, I do my research in my study down the hall.”
Chris entered tentatively through the dark oak door, one of many he had seen along the corridor of the first floor, and saw a cluttered room with thick green curtains and several antique ornaments he could neither name nor accurately describe. His initial assessment was that the room was used primarily for storage and filing, though unlike anything he had seen in recent times.
“Jeez, you weren’t kidding. It looks like it hasn’t been used since the Victorians.”
Colts wandered through the maze of disorganised furniture to where the room split into two: half organised, half junk.
“Back when Arthur began working on the case, he became one of only four men in history entrusted with the full details of what had gone on in the time of your ancestor. One of those was this man.” He pointed to a silver-framed, black and white photograph, randomly situated on top of a wooden filing cabinet, of a well-dressed man with a Kitchener-style moustache and dressed in military garb. The insignia denoted the rank of general.
The signature referred to him as Sir James Stewart Levin.
“Who were the other two?”
“One was Levin’s successor, an equally striking figure by the name of General Haines. Rode horse all the way through the nonsense with Lawrence of Arabia before dying at Dunkirk.”
“And the other?”
“The other is yours truly. Though that was for a different reason.”
Chris eyed him sceptically. “Why you?”
“Why not?”
“No reason. Just seems an odd quartet. Two military men, two civilians.”
“Wasn’t always that way. Though Arthur had been too young to serve in the war with great prominence, he still made it to captain. Back home, I did my service after ’Nam.”
Chris smiled. “So I guess that’s one thing we all have in common.”
Colts edged his way through the cluttered side of the room, doing his best not to trip on any of the loose furniture. “When Arthur took over from Haines in the early fifties as leader of Project Estelle, he inherited all the materials and correspondence ever collected.”
“What’s Project Estelle?”
“A military term used to cover a period of activity that began sometime before either of us were born and could even end well after all of us die. The exact beginnings are a mystery even to me. Based on Levin’s letter of appointment, creation can officially be dated to approximately 1909, which obviously postdates your ancestor’s involvement. One thing for sure is that this hotbed of activity almost certainly began because of him and, at least unofficially, probably commenced almost immediately after Dr Thomas’s initial return from St Lide’s. Early correspondence seems to concern only hostile behaviour from the islanders towards those of the neighbouring islands.”
“What exactly were they looking for?”
“Folklore in England, especially Cornwall and among the islanders, spoke of a Spanish galleon going down since as long ago as anyone can remember. The fact that Raleigh was added to it made the tale even tastier. Nobody really knew exactly what there was to be found.”
“Then why the great secret? If the contents of the treasure were a mystery, why the great cover-up?”
Colts stepped to one side. “These drawers, Chris, haven’t been opened for a long time. I, myself, have not read them for a long time. Any questions you have regarding the agent, if it’s recorded anywhere, will probably be here.”
Chris was horrified. “I can’t go through all this. There’s like six cabinets.”
“Actually there’s well over twenty. However, the important stuff will probably be found here.” Colts opened the middle drawer of a three-drawer cabinet, its label referencing the material among the years 1902–7. “Any correspondence your ancestor made will be kept here.”
“Why here? If it’s so important, why isn’t it kept in the National Archives along with the other important stuff?”
Colts glared at him. “Read through the content yourself, and then tell me if you still think it would be a good idea to keep it with all the other stuff.”
29
The concert had been underway for almost forty minutes. Ben applauded politely as the group finished another song, the sudden ending catapulting the theatre into a cauldron of noise. The atmosphere had impressed him: calm but enthusiastic, more in keeping with the band than the venue. They weren’t the type of artists he associated with a theatre, though their fan base suited the capacity. Smatterings of empty seats among the upper tiers confirmed it wasn’t a sell-out, despite the usher’s attempt to prevent them from buying tickets.
Juliet whispered in Ben’s ear as the lead singer addressed the crowd. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of this group. I might have to buy their album.”
Ben raised an eyebrow, followed by a frown. “Well, we can leave iTunes till we get out of here. The signal’s awful anyway.”
He glanced at his phone. 21:41.
Juliet grinned at him. “You going to tell Colts they’re better than the Nolans?”
“If we find what we’re looking for, I’ll tell him they were better than the Spice Girls.”
Juliet laughed, applauding as the three-piece girl band introduced their new single, heralding the arrival of a guest male artist Ben had never heard of.
“Listen, I’m going to take a walk to the bathroom, maybe take a look around.”
“Not yet, but the signal is useless. Maybe in the can I’ll have better luck. I’ll contact you if I find anything.”
Ben got up from his seat and headed behind the red curtain, returning to the stairwell. He had used the first half of the concert to read up on the layout, trying to figure out everything he could in case Colts’s instructions failed to come through.
Technically the theatre consisted of two buildings. Originally the part that backed on to the Plaza Mayor had been a hostel; the other part, the actual concert venue. The three-storey lobby they had already passed through on their arrival now connected both buildings.
He took the stairway, still trying to make sense of the layout. The offices on the second floor were all unlit, dimly illuminated only by the nearby wall lights that supplemented the round skylight at the centre of the ceiling. Close to the bottom of the stairs, Ben noticed a long lounge bar below the offices, also presently unused.
He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket, Colts. He scanned the text, finding little of value.
He dialled. It connected.
“Colts, I got your text, but none of this is relevant. They’ve done a complete refurb since then.”
Sitting at his desk in his study, Colts took a long, lengthy breath and glanced out the window. A flock of birds had perched outside on the roof, their shrill squawking temporarily interrupting the peace.
“Where exactly are you?”
“On the stairs, heading for the lobby. The stairway connects the three floors of the theatre on one side, and offices and conference rooms on the other. The office side backs on to the Plaza Mayor.”
“Back when I last visited, there used to be a hostel located there. I’m guessing it’s gone.”
“It has. There’s offices and conference rooms on the top two floors and a bar on the first. Seem to be deserted.”
Colts spun away from his desk and wheeled his chair towards a nearby filing cabinet. He opened the third drawer and began looking through a folder. The content was purely photographs.