“Just for a walk and a bit of girlie chat,” said Annette, waving at him in a perfunctory manner.
“Shelley, I’d like to talk to you,” said Paris. “Please, come back for a moment.”
“I’m going for a walk with Annette,” said Shelley, her voice firm. It was not easy to refuse him. He looked so handsome standing there in the midday sun. Even from a distance she could see the light catching his lovely eyes. She waved and turned away from him, feeling a pang as she did so. It did not matter how much she loved him, he was up to no good, and he would not fool her again.
“I hear you two were getting close last night. What’s happened since?” asked Annette
“I told you, he was talking to Professor Grunwald. Obviously, the Professor is comfortable enough with Paris to let the German accent drop.”
“Are you absolutely sure it was Paris?”
“I know it’s hard for you to believe, Annette, but he was standing in the office doorway when I went into the hall, just after Grunwald left.” Shelley felt unaccountably guilty about being suspicious of Paris. Why she should she did not know. But her resolve seemed to be slipping the further away from the farmhouse they were.
“What exactly do you think they’re up to, Shelley?”
“I think it has something to do with Nazi loot. Stefan said his father was shot stealing something, and his father’s letter, which I’ve lost, mentioned a place called Helena’s Bay. I think the bay where the Professor and his men are digging is Helena’s Bay, though it’s not called that on the map, is it?”
“It’s too small to even have a name. Why Helena’s?”
It did not occur to Shelley to wonder why Annette did not know Yaya’s first name. “Then there was something else. There was a website set up by Stefan’s cousin, searching for family members, but when I went back the day after, the site had disappeared off.”
“That is strange.”
“I think that maybe it wasn’t Stefan’s cousin at all, but someone interested in knowing where Stefan’s father hid the loot.” Shelley struggled to keep up with Annette’s long stride. The path might have been a quicker way across the islet, but it was also rocky and uneven.
“Who do you think it might have been?”
“The Professor and probably Paris. I told him – Paris - about the letters. Actually I told a few people. You were there too, remember. It could have been anyone at the farmhouse, but it must have been Paris because Grunwald was in his office.” Shelley stopped, the ache in her heart constricting her chest. She turned and looked back towards the farmhouse and beach. The ferry was still in, yet it should have been on its way back to the mainland. “Someone broke into my room and stole the letters, and obviously went online to delete the website. Also, Mrs Caldicott and Miss Charters keep trying to stop me wandering off on my own. So I think they’re involved too. But maybe not. I mean they’re nice ladies, aren’t they? Truth is, I don’t know who to trust.” She started walking again, catching up with Annette.
“Fancy Paris being caught up in this,” said Annette. “I mean, I thought myself there was something odd going on here, but not this. I’ve noticed that Paris and Mrs Caldicott are often huddled together. They’re not supposed to have met until this week, yet it’s like they’ve known each other forever.”
“Yes,” said Shelley, nodding vigorously. “I’ve noticed that too. They had an argument the other day, and I heard her say to him ‘remember what I said’. I don’t know what that was all about, but it suggests she’s his boss or something.” Once again, Shelley felt a pang about being disloyal. Yet, if they were involved in something illegal, and had hurt poor Stefan, she owed them no loyalty.
Still the memory of Paris’s kiss made her lips tingle. His touch burned in her heart. He had been a very convincing lover. For the short time she was in his arms, she believed he really cared for her. That he wanted her even. Perhaps he did, in a purely sexual sense. Whether he was a criminal or not, he would have the same needs as other men. He probably saw her as an enjoyable diversion, whilst he got on with the real job of finding whatever it was Stefan’s father had stolen. Paris’s betrayal somehow felt worse than Tony’s had ever been. Perhaps because her feelings for Paris were stronger than they had ever been for Tony. She pushed that thought aside.
“Don’t worry, Shelley, we’ll get to the bottom of it,” said Annette, breaking into her reverie. “We’ll soon be close to solving this.”
“The ferry is still in. Or at least it was when I just stopped. That’s odd, isn’t it?”
“Not really. There were no passengers waiting, so he sometimes waits. Or he could be making a delivery to the farmhouse. Come on, let’s solve this mystery.”
Annette began to walk faster, making it harder for Shelley to keep up. She wished she had worn her trainers rather than espadrilles. Following Annette was like going on a route march. The woman could certainly stretch her long legs. Shelley’s shorter legs screamed at the exertion.
It took them nearly ten minutes to reach the other side of the islet, and approached the bay from a different direction to the one Shelley had taken. Annette took her through a small cut in some rocks, and just beyond it was the camp site, which Shelley had somehow failed to see two days before. Annette clambered down the rocks like a mountain goat, whilst Shelley followed gingerly.
Professor Grunwald, or whatever his real name was, looked up from his work and saw Annette. When he smiled, Shelley, who was still some way behind Annette, felt a jolt of fear. There was something in that smile. Something far too familiar.
“Hello,” said Annette. The way she said that one simple word was too confident. Like she was expected there. “I’ve brought our young friend.”
“That’s great. Bring her down,” Grunwald replied, speaking in an English accent.
That was when Shelley realised how truly stupid she had been. She turned, ready to run back through the rocks, but stopped when she heard a heavy click.
“Stay where you are,” said Grunwald. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
She spun back towards the bay and saw him standing only a few feet away from her, holding a gun. Her heart flipped, then thumped violently. Her mouth felt arid, and though she tried to speak, to protest, she found she was unable to. Her mind screamed at her to run away, but her legs remained rooted to the spot.
“How much does she know?” Grunwald asked Annette.
“Pretty much everything. She’s a lot smarter than she looks. Well, almost. She thought you were talking to the delectable Paris last night. He nearly found me in his office. Luckily I managed to slip out through the window.”
“What have you done to Stefan?” asked Shelley, her voice breaking on the words.
“He’s quite safe. We’ve taken him from the island,” said Grunwald, “just as you thought we had.”
Shelley turned to Annette. “You lied about what the ferryman said. He did tell you it was an old man.”
“Yes. You’re easily fooled, you know.”
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, looking at Grunwald with the gun.
“We’re not killers, Shelley.”
“So why are you pointing a gun at me?”
“We have important work to do, and we can’t afford for you to stop us. We’re close to a breakthrough, thanks to the letters from Stefan’s father. By the end of the day we’ll be gone, but you can’t let them know what we’re doing. We’ll let you go as soon as we’ve found what we’re looking for.”
“Did you set up the website, pretending to be cousin Bertha?”
“Yes, we did,” said Annette. “I played Bertha, and sent pictures to Stefan to gain his trust. The website was a bit careless, we should have deleted it as soon as we’d made contact but we were afraid that would alert Stefan. We used it to lure him here with the letters. But it turns out he did his own bit of investigating and found out Bertha didn’t exist. That’s why he rushed from the dining room that night. When he saw me arrive. We didn’t kno
w what he’d done with the letters till you blabbed to everyone the next morning. It was easy enough to go up into your room whilst you were in Yaya’s class.”
“Are you Nazis?” asked Shelley.
Annette and Grunwald burst out laughing. “No, we’re not Nazis. We just like tracking down Nazi loot. There’s a lot of it hidden out there.”
“I’m guessing you don’t return it to the rightful owners.”
“Oh get real, Shelley,” said Grunwald. “There’s hardly anyone left alive to claim it now. So why shouldn’t we benefit?”
“Because it was stolen from people who then lost their lives to the Nazis. How can you even begin to enjoy spending money that’s stained with the blood of innocent people?”
“Oh, I find it quite easy,” said Annette, grinning. “No one cares anymore, Shelley. Even if you reported us, we haven’t broken any laws.”
“You’ve abducted an old man! And Grunwald or whatever his name is, is pointing a gun at me.”
“It’s Greenwood,” said the professor. “And as I’ve already told you, you’ll be set free, as will Stefan, once we have what we want.”
“If you’ve hurt him in any way…”
“You’ll what?” Annette snorted. “Track us down? Seek revenge? We’ll be long gone, my love, with enough money to ensure we can stay hidden forever.”
“If I don’t return to the farmhouse soon, they’ll come looking for me.”
“No, they won’t,” said Annette. “You’re out walking with me. I’m a trusted employee. And it’s free time this afternoon, until supper at seven. No classes. No Demos. They’ll just think you’re touring the islet with me. Now, be quiet, we’ve work to do.”
Greenwood called one of his men, and gave him the gun. “Keep an eye on her.”
“What exactly are you looking for?” asked Shelley. “Really, I’m interested.” She hoped that if she could keep them talking long enough someone from the farmhouse might worry about their absence. They might come looking for her. Then she remembered how cold she had been with the other guests, and with Paris in particular that morning. Why should anyone come looking for her? She had not encouraged their friendship, preferring her own company when she had any free time.
Annette sighed. “You read the letter, didn’t you? About the rubies? They used to be in the chalice at the old church. Then the Nazi occupiers stole them. Unfortunately they were then stolen from the Nazis. By Von Mueller senior and Helena. Yaya.”
“So when he said Helena’s bay, he wasn’t talking about the name of the place. He was talking about it being her place. Her favourite place?”
“Yes, yes, something like that.” Annette rolled her eyes as if such details were of no consequence to her. “Anyway, they stole them, and, we think, hid them here. He mentions this place in his letters all the time.”
“How did you know it was Helena’s bay?”
“That took some working out, but Yaya still comes here a lot, though she doesn’t know why. She lost her memory when she got shot.”
“So why was Stefan Von Mueller shot by the allies if he was trying to help? And Helena?”
Annette sighed and put her hands on her hips. “You’re not that smart after all, are you? Stefan Von Mueller senior and Helena weren’t shot by the allies. The Nazis shot them, several days after they stole back and hid the rubies. He died but she managed to crawl away, despite her head injury.”
“So Stefan’s dad did the honourable thing after all,” said Shelley. “Does he know? Stefan junior, I mean.”
“Who cares?”
“I should think he does, very much. What have you done with him?”
“Annette!” Greenwood snapped. “For God’s sake why are you even talking to her? We’ve got work to do. This is sounding like the end of a Bond film, with you giving away the whole damn plot before she’s supposed to die.”
Shelley gasped, her heart starting to pound in her chest again. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“And we won’t. If you stop asking bloody questions. Now sit down on that rock and shut up,” said Greenwood. He turned to Annette. “Come on!”
“Hey,” said the thug. “Where’d you get the gun?”
“Found it whilst we were digging,” said Greenwood, looking annoyed. As if he had not wanted Shelley to know that.
Shelley looked at the henchman, her mind racing. She did not know whether he was a killer or not. For all she knew, Greenwood lied, and Stefan was already dead, and she would be dead soon. “Do you know anything about it all?” she asked the man.
“Yeah, some. Now shut up.”
“How did Yaya … Helena … get away? If she was shot on the islet, she’d have nowhere to hide.” One thing she had learned from her experience with Tony is that criminals, especially when they fear no comebacks, do like to talk about how clever they have been.
“She wasn’t shot on the islet, was she? She was shot on the mainland. Then she crawled to the hospital.”
“What was she doing on the mainland? I thought she lived here. The family owned the land before the Nazis came.”
“She did.” He rolled his eyes, as if Shelley had just said something ridiculous. “But they caught up with them over there, near where they were building the extension to the church.”
“So how …” Shelley stopped. She had been about to ask how the team knew that rubies were still on the islet, but it occurred to her that might have them heading for the mainland, killing her on the way to stop her talking. The longer they were here, the more chance, she hoped, that someone would come and save her.
“What?”
“How did she manage to crawl so far with a head injury?” Shelley had no idea where the hospital was, or even if it were right next door to the church, but it was the first question that she thought of to cover up her real query.
“How the hell should I know? Do I look like a brain surgeon?”
“No,” said Shelley, eying his stocky frame and cauliflower ears. “No, you don’t.”
The time passed by slowly. Shelley kept looking at her watch, but it seemed to her that the hands had stopped still. Other times she looked, when she was wondering when they would kill her, and the time seemed to have flown by.
She willed Paris to realise she was in danger. Or someone. Anyone. But as the minutes passed by she realised they were not coming. No one cared.
“I’ll tell you something else,” said the thug, after a long silence. “When they got that Yaya to the hospital, turned out she was having a baby.”
“Paris’s father?”
“Yep. And who had she been spending loads of time with?”
“Stefan Von Mueller senior. You think Stefan junior and Paris’s dad are half-brothers?”
“That’s what Annette and Greenwood think.”
“Does Stefan know this?”
“Dunno.”
“So Stefan is Paris’s uncle.” Shelley wondered how Stefan would feel about it. And Paris. He said his mother was Jewish. How would he feel knowing that his grandfather was a Nazi, with all the implications that went with that revelation? But Von Mueller had done the right thing in the end. He had helped Yaya hide the rubies, and it cost him his life.
Deep down, Shelley was not sure if a few rubies were worth the loss of a life. After all, they were only objects. Whilst the money from them might be tempting for many, it did not make up for two boys – Stefan and Paris’s father – growing up without a dad in their lives.
As she sat there on the rocks, with the thug pointing a gun at her, Shelley began to think about her own life. Yes, Tony had conned her out of a lot of money. But she was still alive. She was young and fit, and had plenty of years ahead of her, assuming she got out of this awful situation.
Down on the beach, Annette and Greenwood were digging just inside a cove. They had clearly covered very inch of the bay, and this was the last place. What was the old saying about lost things? That you always find them in the last place you look? But they were no
t going to find the rubies there. Because Shelley was convinced that Stefan and Helena had not hidden them on the islet. They had hidden them on the mainland. And mainland Greece was a lot bigger than this islet. They would not begin to know where to look. Shelley had a good idea though.
Despite her not being personally interested in the rubies, she felt a glimmer of excitement at the thought of being the one to find them. Then they could be returned to their rightful owners. Maybe they would be able to rebuild the church on the islet. Except that apart from Yaya’s farmhouse, there was no one on the islet to attend it anymore.
Before Shelley could even begin to worry about that, she realised she had to get herself out of the situation she was in.
Chapter Ten
Whilst Grunwald or Greenwood or whatever his name was and Annette dug alongside the other men for the treasure, Shelley eyed the thug watching her. Then she looked down at the ground, as if she had lost interest in him.
Really she was thinking back to when she and her brother, Rob, were little, and visiting her grandparents for tea. Granddad always kept his war memorabilia in a case, out of harm’s way, but one day, when he was cleaning it, he left the case open for a moment to answer the telephone. Immediately, Rob, who would have been about ten at the time, snatched up an old pistol that was her Granddad’s pride and joy, swinging it around his finger like a sharp shooter.
Shelley had never seen Granddad angry before, he had always seemed such a mild-mannered man. But that day he was furious, slamming the phone down and grabbing the gun from Rob. He caught her brother by his shoulders and yelled at him, “You stupid boy! Don’t you ever do something like that again. You could have killed your sister. Good lord, with a gun that old, you could have killed yourself too.”
Rob had just stared up at him, wide-eyed with terror, whilst eight year old Shelley, in no way responsible for any of it, starting crying.
When he calmed down, and after he had locked everything away safely again, Granddad pulled Rob and Shelley onto his knee. “I’m sorry I frightened you, lad. It was my fault for leaving the case open, so I shouldn’t have been so angry with you. It’s just that if anything ever happened to either of you…” To Shelley’s amazement, her Granddad had tears in his eyes. “I’d never forgive myself.”
The Secret of Helena's Bay Page 7
