Golden Relic

by Lindy Cameron

  “Quiet Pavel,” Maggie ordered. “You’re perfectly all right.”

  “My stomach is still out on the street,” he complained.

  “There they go,” Jonathan said, as Vasquez’s jeep sped past. He drove out the gate and headed back the way they’d come but had to wait at the corner for a car to pass before making a left turn to follow the very slow driver down the street. “Bloody Volvo drivers, they’re the same the world over,” he swore. “Get out of the way!” he yelled, as he overtook the car and sped through the next intersection.

  “We’re nearly there,” Maggie said half an hour later, as they cruised along a bumpy dirt road. “That’s one of the walls I was telling you about the day we arrived, Sam.”

  “That’s nice,” Sam said, peering out at a large section of Inca stonework that had been reclaimed from the hillside. “I’m glad I actually got to see it before my untimely death later tonight.” She took a few deep breaths as they turned onto a winding rutted track through a small forest and into a large clearing which contained nothing but a hangar and the plane from hell on the far side. Sam groaned and slouched down into the seat.

  Jonathan parked the car and Maggie leapt out, stuck her fingers in her mouth and gave a loud whistle. Randolph sauntered out of the hangar, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Crank her up, mate,” Maggie requested, “we’re on a tight schedule.”

  “Are you coming, Sam?” Pavel asked, looking in the back window at her.

  “I was thinking of taking up residency in Cuzco,” Sam said, getting out of the car. “The thought of getting back into that, that thing is making me nauseous.” She helped Jonathan and Pavel carry the bags to the plane, mostly because she figured it would be more difficult for her to run screaming off into the hills if she was laden down with stuff.

  Randolph had already started the engines, which Sam decided was a good thing, because the deafening noise would cover the sound of all the important bits dropping off it. Although that thought didn’t help the fact that bits were actually falling off. Sam stared in puzzlement as a second tiny piece of the wing leapt onto the ground. She turned around to see if anyone else had noticed and then realised that the source of the problem was the car that had just emerged from the forest.

  “Get on the plane,” she yelled. “Everyone, get on the plane now. Someone is shooting at us.”

  Pavel, who was already inside hauled Maggie into the cabin. Sam leapt in after her and then held her hand out for Jonathan. “You cannot stay here, Jonathan,” she shouted.

  Randolph aimed his plane at the runway while Sam and Jonathan fought with the door, finally getting it shut.

  Mr Fez, who had obviously realised he wasn’t going to catch them, had stopped his car and jumped out so he could take better aim with his gun.

  “Bloody Volvo drivers, they’re the same the world over,” Sam swore.

  “Is it the same Volvo?” Jonathan asked.

  “The very same,” Sam nodded.

  “The bastard,” Randolph yelled, “he is trying to kill my baby.”

  “He’s going to kill all of us if you don’t get this crate in the air,” Sam shouted, just as the wheels left the ground.

  “Well,” Maggie breathed a sigh of relief, “I give him this much, he is persistent.”

  Melbourne, Friday October 9, 1998

  Sam pushed the recalcitrant trolley loaded with their bags towards the Arrivals exit doors. She had always wondered what this moment of coming home from an overseas trip would feel like. She’d been on the other side often enough, waiting for her friends in a sea of strangers waiting for their friends or families. She kicked the trolley wheel again, thinking it was a pity that not a soul knew they were coming; there’d be no one jumping up and down outside to greet them.

  “This airport has changed since I was last here,” Pavel commented, as he helped Sam by kicking the wheel on the other side.

  “When were you last here?”

  “Maybe 20 years ago,” he replied.

  Sam laughed. “If you think the airport has changed, just wait till you see the city,” she said.

  The doors opened and the sea of strangers, plus one familiar face, all leant forward to see if they should get excited yet.

  “Rivers? What are you doing here?” Sam asked, as he ducked under the barrier and followed them out.

  “Maggie called me from the plane,” he said. “Hi Maggie,” he added with a grin.

  “I’m so pleased you could make it,” Maggie smiled. “Herc, this is my dear friend Pavel Mercier, Pavel this is my new dear friend Hercules Rivers.”

  Sam lost control of the trolley as Pavel and Rivers shook hands, as men absolutely have to do right then and there on the spot, across her and the luggage. “Can we do the male bonding thing outside, please?” she asked, picking up the bag that had fallen off.

  “Pavel Mercier?” Rivers said, once they got out into the carpark and he had stopped grinning like an idiot at Maggie. “But I thought you were���”

  “Dead? Not any more my boy,” Pavel said. “I got bored, so I decided to visit a few friends.”

  “It’s a long story,” Sam said. “What’s been happening here?”

  “Not a lot actually,” Rivers said, opening the back of his hatchback car and packing the bags in.

  “Prescott has been in a completely deranged state ever since you left. Rigby put me in charge, thank you very much, of keeping the assistant director informed so that he wouldn’t go off the rails and call an international press conference to deny his own rumours of a sabotage plot.” Rivers held the front passenger door open for Maggie, and let Sam and Pavel fend for themselves in the back.

  “Rigby in the meantime,” he continued, “is gathering his evidence against Haddon Gould, who is still his number one suspect, and Peter Gilchrist who is running a close second. Although the fact the Andrew Barstoc disappeared for three days, and Enrico Vasquez just up and left the country threw a serious spanner in his works. He now thinks you might be right about one or both of them being up to something, but he’s pressing on with Gould and Gilchrist anyway.

  “That’s all I know really,” he said, pulling out of the parking spot and heading for the exit. “I’ve actually been on sick leave for two days,” he added, lifting his fringe to show Maggie the wound on his head.

  “Good heavens, what happened?” she asked.

  “I had an altercation with a drunk who used my head to see how strong his pool cue was. My head was stronger,” Rivers laughed, “but it bled a lot more than his broken stick.”

  “If you’re not on duty Rivers, perhaps you could drop me off at Jack’s office,” Sam suggested, “and then take Maggie and Pavel, oh and my stuff I suppose, to their hotel.”

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the world traveller home again, home again,” Jack boomed as Sam approached his office 40 minutes later. “So how was Egypt?”

  “Egypt was just fine, Jack,” Sam said dropping into the chair opposite his. “Peru was pretty good too,” she added.

  “Peru,” Jack repeated. “I see. No I don’t. Let me guess, you found another cryptic note.”

  “Not so cryptic,” Sam said. She pulled out the photo of Manco City 1962 and placed it on the desk. “We found out why Professor Marsden was murdered, and why nearly everyone else in that photograph has also met an unpleasant end in the last two years.”

  Rigby stared at the photo then eyed Sam warily. “I suppose you’re going to tell me a story that involves a mysterious relic and probably a curse of some kind,” he said.

  Sam raised her eyebrows in surprise.

  “Oh god, you are aren’t you?” Rigby said.

  “What on earth made you say that?” Sam asked.

  “This photo. It looks like a still from an Indiana Jones movie.”

  “Well, it’s funny you should say that Jack, because���”

  “Before you go telling me any bizarre fairytales, Sam, there’s something you should know.”

>   “What?”

  “I’ve arrested someone for the murder of Professor Marsden.”

  “Who?”

  “Haddon Gould. He confessed this morning. We’ve got him locked up downstairs.” Rigby leant back in his chair and smiled at Sam. “Reality is such a bitch, isn’t it?”

  Chapter Ten

  Melbourne, Friday October 9, 1998

  For a man who had just confessed to and been arrested for murder, Haddon Gould didn’t look in the least bit guilty, or self-righteous, or worried about the consequences. In fact, if anything, he looked like he’d just been paid a great compliment and was trying very hard not to show how pleased he was.

  Sam couldn’t work out whether Gould was a cold-hearted bastard, a sociopath or just plain mad. She watched him run his hand through his blonde hair and adjust the collar of his shirt. There was no nervous tension in either gesture; the man was simply making sure he was presentable.

  In Sam’s experience most people, even witnesses and certainly suspects - whether guilty or not - displayed a discernible and understandable amount of fear, trepidation or bravado when facing two Homicide detectives across an official interview table. But not Haddon Gould.

  There is something seriously wrong with this picture, Sam thought. She pressed the pause button and rewound the interview tape. If Gould was a murderer, he was the strangest one Sam had ever come across. He hadn’t given even the slightest hint of an ‘uh-oh I’ve been sprung, I’d better come clean’. He had simply and calmly admitted to the murder of Professor Marsden.

  “So, now what do you think?” Rigby asked from the doorway.

  Sam pressed the pause button again. “I think you’ll be laughed out of court, if it gets that far.”

  “What’s with you Sam? The man confessed.”

  Sam shrugged. “I think he was improvising,” she said, pressing the play button.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “He didn’t tell you anything, Jack. He just agreed with you,” Sam said. “You watch his face.”

  “You really think I murdered Lloyd, don’t you?” Gould gave a fascinated smile, as if the fact that the police seriously regarded him as a suspect was an idea that appealed to him. He shifted slightly in his seat and then lifted his shoulders. “Okay, I admit I did strike Lloyd.”

  “You hit him in the face?” Rigby asked, obviously taken aback by the sudden admission.

  “Yes, I hit him in the face.”

  “And in the throat?” Rigby prompted.

  “Probably,” Gould said. “Heat of the moment, you know, I don’t remember the specifics.”

  “But the poison wasn’t heat of the moment, was it?”

  “The poison,” Gould repeated. He blinked several times but otherwise did not move a muscle. “The poison was poetic justice,” he said and smiled. “I think I would like a lawyer now please.”

  “It still sounds like a confession to me, Sam,” Rigby stated.

  “Jack, prior to this part of the interview you did not mention that Marsden had been struck or poisoned. Now, most people - not that I think Gould fits into that category at all - but most people would say ‘yes I hit him, or I slapped or punched him’ but Gould used my words from our initial interview. I asked him, and I quote, ‘did you strike the Professor?’ Can you see what I’m getting at here, Jack?”

  “No, Sam, I can’t.”

  “You fed him the lines, Jack. You said ‘you hit him in the face’, he agreed; you said ‘and in the throat’, he agreed. But when you mentioned the poison, he repeated your words, as if it was a question, took a second to process the information and then called it ‘poetic justice’. What the hell does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “You expect a sensible answer? The guy’s obviously a loon.”

  “He is that,” Sam agreed. “There was no fear, no remorse, no sense that he’d been caught out. The man was flattered, Jack. Flattered that you thought he might have done what he’s probably always wanted to do. But I bet you a year’s salary that he didn’t.”

  “You’re on,” Rigby stated. “We’ve got motive, a confession and the ring we found in his office.”

  “Which anyone could have planted,” Sam said. “When is his lawyer expected?”

  “Not until tomorrow morning, unfortunately. He was in Adelaide.”

  “May I sit in on the second interview?”

  Rigby scowled at her. “I suppose. Yeah, why not. It might be interesting.”

  Maggie Tremaine laughed until she had tears running down her face. “You have got to be kidding.”

  “That’s pretty much what I said,” Sam smiled. “Realistically, however, Jack can’t ignore the confession or the fact that the murder weapon was found in Gould’s office.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Haddon is not a devious man, Sam. He’s more your brawling, knock ‘em down and sit on ‘em sort of bloke. His imagination only works when it’s in paranoid mode and I doubt it could have come up with the idea of using a poison ring to kill Lloyd. But if he killed him, he wouldn’t have left the weapon in his own office. Haddon might be a nutter but even he is not that stupid.”

  “He seemed quite taken by the idea that he was the prime suspect. But why would he confess?”

  “Maybe he’s scoring one last point against Lloyd by helping the real murderer escape justice.”

  “By going to jail himself?”

  Maggie shrugged. “But he’s not likely to is he? And he does so love to be the centre of attention. We should talk to his wife Anna to see if we can find out why he hated Lloyd so much.”

  The door to Maggie’s suite opened just enough to allow Pavel to slip inside. He was still wearing his Panama hat and a version of his happy tourist clothes but the man himself looked miserable.

  “Terrible news. A whisky please, dear Maggie.” He slumped onto the couch. “I have just spoken to a friend in San Francisco who told me Barbara Stone died from a stroke in June of last year.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Sam.

  Maggie downed Pavel’s whisky herself and then poured three glasses and handed them out.

  Pavel waved his glass under his nose and inhaled deeply. “This is not fair. Poor Barbara, she never had much happiness in her life. But my friend said she’d just started a new business in Venice Beach, one of those New Age shops, and she had fallen in love. She was happy, and then this bastard that we are hunting kills her. And for what? For gold? I will make him pay when we catch him.”

  Sam knew it was pointless to comment on Pavel’s last statement so she decided to change the subject. “I called into my office after I’d seen Jack and asked my partner Ben to do a background check on Enrico Vasquez who, by the way, allegedly returned to Peru to visit his poor sick mother.

  “Ben has also been running the surveillance on Barstoc, and he said that during the three days that our friend Andy ‘disappeared’ he was in Sydney doing business with a couple of antique dealers. These ‘business associates’ apparently just scrape through on the right side of legitimate but only, Ben says, because nothing has ever been proven against them.”

  “What sort of antiques?” Maggie asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask,” Sam said, checking her watch. It was 5.30 pm. “I intend to interview Barstoc again tomorrow, however, so I’ll add that question to my list, right under the one about why he was pretending to be a crime fiction buff in Cairo.”

  “Phineas, ever the show pony, is throwing a pre-Conference party in the hotel from eight tonight,” Maggie said, raising her eyebrows. “Why not join me and get Barstoc in a corner somewhere?”

  “Good idea,” Sam said. “Speaking of the Conference, I also spoke to Prescott and asked him to check for any late registrations. It seems news of the mysterious Henri Schliemann’s discovery may have resulted in as many as 15 last-minute delegates - including one Pablo Escobar.”

  “I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist,” Maggie smiled. “I think he lost his purp
ose in life when the Tahuantinsuyu Bracelet was stolen in Paris. When he sees the Hand he’ll have a whole new cause.”

  “If he doesn’t already know all about it,” Sam reminded her. “Your friend Louis Ducruet is also on the list,” Sam said, pulling a piece of paper from her jacket pocket and handing it to Maggie.

  “Yes, I have spoken with Louis,” Pavel said. “He went home to Montreal from Istanbul to collect the middle finger, and he arrives here tonight. He will come straight to my room where we will rehearse our little performance for the official welcoming reception tomorrow night.”

  “Did you ask if he’d been approached by someone from the Life and Death show or by anyone else about the Hand?” Sam asked.

  “I did. And he said no, not that he was aware of.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the show’s itinerary,” Sam said. “It started in New York, then headed west to San Francisco, north to Anchorage and east to London, bypassing Montreal all together. Wouldn’t it have been economically sensible to do Montreal after New York, seeing it’s just over the border, rather than after New Zealand at the very end of the tour?”

  “Montreal may not have been able to host the exhibition at that time,” Maggie explained.

  “It is more likely that the tour date had to coincide with Louis being in Montreal,” Pavel said. “He has been working in Turkey since mid 1996. But it was common knowledge even then that he was taking a permanent University post in Montreal when Dan Geiger retires at the end of this year.”

  “Well,” Sam announced, getting to her feet. “I’m going home to shower and change into something that hasn’t been squashed into a backpack for two weeks. I will meet you here at 7.45.”

  “Good idea,” Maggie said. “But Sam, whatever you do, don’t get tempted to have a quick nap to combat the jetlag. I did that once and didn’t wake up for two days.”

  Two hours later, semi-refreshed but fighting an overwhelming tiredness, Sam was taking the lift back up to Maggie’s suite when her mobile rang.

  “Hey, Sammy,” Ben Muldoon said.