The Emerald Casket

by Richard Newsome

  A break in the traffic opened up behind and within seconds the two motorcycles were at their rear bumpers. Pranav leaned out and let fly with a stream of what Gerald guessed was swearing in Hindi. But before Pranav could duck his head back inside, the rickshaw hit a pile of rubbish, knocking them onto two wheels and sending Alisha tumbling into Gerald’s lap. The rickshaw veered towards the footpath. Pedestrians dived for cover. The rickshaw mounted the kerb with a jolt, bouncing itself back onto three wheels. Pranav wrestled control, bashing his way through stacks of cardboard boxes and sending crates of drink bottles shattering across the ground. A bandit drew up on Alisha’s side. Like a striking cobra, the man lunged in and grabbed Alisha by the arm. She screamed and Pranav jammed the steering to the right. Gerald threw himself across Alisha and hit out with his fists, landing at least one good punch to the bandit’s jaw. But the man held on. He reefed his handlebars to the left and half dragged Alisha out of the rickshaw.

  ‘Pranav!’ Gerald shouted. ‘Steer away. Steer away!’

  The rickshaw bounced at speed towards a row of ragged stalls. They were entering a narrow market area of shops closed and shuttered for the night. Gerald was on top of Alisha, trying to release the bandit’s grip. But the bucking of the rickshaw made it impossible.

  They crashed over a bump and Gerald sprawled across the floor. His head was poking out the opposite side of the rickshaw.

  His nose tingled. They were heading straight towards a row of cane baskets lined up against a brick wall. Gerald threw his hand out and thrust it under the cover of the closest basket. He scooped up a fistful of bright orange powder. He clenched his jaw, launched himself back across the rickshaw and drove his hand into the bandit’s face, smearing the powder across the man’s eyes and nose. The bandit howled as the spice burned. He clawed at his blinded eyes. In a blur of movement, the front wheel of the motorcycle jackknifed and the man went somersaulting over the handlebars, crashing into the metal roller door of a shop front. Pranav sped on. Gerald tumbled back to the floor by Alisha’s knees.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he panted.

  Alisha slumped back into her seat. ‘What was that you rubbed in his face?’

  ‘No idea.’ He sniffed his hand and flinched. ‘But it’ll take your head off.’

  Gerald pulled himself into the backseat and patted the driver on the shoulder. ‘Good driving, Pranav. Incredible.’

  The boy turned and flashed a smile. ‘Told you I knew some shortcuts.’ A second later Pranav was flying hands outstretched towards the pavement. The other bandit had shot up beside them and leapt from his moving motorbike to shoulder charge the boy out of the rickshaw. The bandit now sat at the speeding rickshaw’s handlebars, with Gerald and Alisha in the back.

  The bandit pulled to the footpath and leered over his shoulder. Alisha responded with a pert smile of her own. She then drove the heel of her right hand hard up under the man’s chin. The jolt sent his head snapping back and knocked him senseless. He slithered out the side of the rickshaw and flopped onto the bitumen.

  Gerald was stunned. ‘Where’d you learn to do that?’

  Alisha grinned. ‘The benefits of a classical education,’ she said. ‘It’s not all Greek, Latin and polo ponies at boarding school you know.’

  Gerald clambered into the driver’s seat. ‘That must be some school.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We better get a move on.’

  He took hold of the handlebars, gave the throttle a twist and they bounced forward. He did a tight U-turn and drove back to where Pranav was sitting on the roadside rubbing his shoulder. Alisha helped him into the back and they sped out of the market.

  They found Ruby and Sam back at the main road standing beside their rickshaw.

  ‘Hop in,’ Gerald called. ‘We’ve got to get that train.’

  Sam and Ruby squeezed into the back. Gerald floored it and took off, following Pranav’s shouted directions.

  ‘As soon as you disappeared up that alley the guy who was chasing us went after you,’ Ruby said. ‘It’s Alisha they’re after.’

  ‘They must really need the cash,’ Sam said.

  Gerald concentrated on driving. He had the feeling there was more to it than ransom money. He pushed the rickshaw as fast as it could go and soon the Agra train station came into view.

  Gerald gave Pranav a massive tip and they ran the last thirty metres, up the steps and onto the station concourse. Alisha stopped a railway employee and he pointed to platform four.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘The train leaves any minute.’

  They bolted up a set of stairs to an overpass, sprinted to the far side and looked down to see their train beginning to pull away from the station.

  ‘Come on!’ Gerald shouted. He planted his backside on the banister and slid all the way down to the platform.

  The chairman’s carriage was at the end of the train. The man with the huge handlebar moustache was standing in the doorway, waving at them to hurry. Gerald dug deep. His boots pounded the pavement and he finally reached the man’s outstretched hand. He latched on and was hauled inside. He landed with a thud and watched as, one after the other, Alisha, Sam and finally Ruby piled on board. The man with the moustache stepped down to the platform. Sam swung the door closed and they all collapsed on the floor.

  Gerald glanced at his watch. Two minutes past one in the morning. The train was right on time. Then he looked down the length of the carriage and realised something. Mr Fry, Miss Turner and Constable Lethbridge were nowhere to be seen.

  Chapter 17

  The rattle and sway of the carriage changed tempo. Gerald was instantly awake. For some reason he felt incredibly alert: as sharp as a blade and seeing the world with a clarity he didn’t usually achieve that early in the day, if at all. He peeled the adhesive bandage from his forehead, sat up and looked at his travelling companions. In the bunk beneath him, Sam was wrapped in a sheet like a cheap Egyptian mummy. Robust snores signalled he was still asleep. Across the aisle, Ruby was in the top bunk. She faced the wall, her blonde hair spilling across the pillow. The sheet resting over her shoulders raised and lowered in the peaceful ebb and flow of slumber. In the bed beneath her was Alisha. She lay on her back, her head to the side. Her face was cleaned of makeup and without blemish. She rested peacefully, apparently unaffected by two abduction attempts.

  It was those two attacks that were occupying Gerald’s thoughts at that moment. He tried to recall every detail from the previous night, especially the bandit girl’s warning.

  The Guptas are no friends of the fraternity, she’d said. And she kissed him. Gerald’s eyes glazed over at the memory of that: the cushioned softness of the lips, the perfume of her skin, the musty warmth of…

  Gerald rattled his head. No! He had to concentrate. How did the bandit girl know about the fraternity? Not that he knew anything about it, apart from an empty envelope and some overheard phone conversation between his great aunt and a stranger. How could a teenage member of some murderous death cult know anything about it?

  Was he ready?

  Then a thought strayed into his head, like a wandering puppy that had turned into the wrong front yard. Gerald tried to shoo the thought away. But it lingered. It lingered, sniffed about and threatened to lift its leg against the letterbox. He stared again at the sleeping face of Alisha. Gerald had a desperate urge to wake Ruby. But the train’s rhythm shifted again, and the groans of stirring teenagers drifted through the carriage.

  ‘What time is it?’ Sam stuck his head out from inside his cotton sarcophagus and immediately hid it away again.

  ‘Almost eight, I think.’ Gerald swung down onto the floor and looked for his boots. He found them under a pile of wet clothes that he’d peeled off the night before.

  Ruby stuck her chin over the edge of her bunk. ‘I’m starving. What’s for breakfast?’

  ‘We’re coming into a station,’ Alisha said. ‘Let’s get something there.’

  Gerald pulled back a curtain to reveal an overcast sky. The
train slowed as it moved into a built-up area that was dotted with industrial workshops and brown-brick buildings in various stages of collapse. Gerald walked to the end of the carriage and swung open the heavy metal door. The heat of the morning greeted him like a slap in the face. He stood on the top step and leaned out. As ever, the station was a riot of activity. Porters pushed handcarts piled high with bags and bundles, and passengers positioned themselves to do battle for seats. Dotted along the platform were a number of food vendors toiling behind hot plates and pans of bubbling oil. Gerald was joined at the open doorway by the others.

  ‘Alisha, why don’t you see if you can get some mobile coverage here while Ruby and I get the food.’

  Alisha checked her phone. ‘Okay, but it still looks like we’re out of range. I’ll try Miss Turner again if I can get a signal.’

  ‘And what do I do, since you’re giving the orders.’ Sam had sulked off to bed the night before without saying goodnight and it looked like he was determined to keep the grudge simmering.

  ‘You could watch over our stuff to make sure no one nicks anything,’ Gerald said.

  Sam didn’t respond. He slouched back inside the carriage.

  Gerald nudged Ruby in the ribs. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what the food’s like down here.’ He pushed his way along the platform and joined a crowd around a small cart. The aroma of something delicious cooking on a hot plate wafted around them.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ Gerald said.

  ‘I figured that. You may as well have shoved Sam back onto the train and told Alisha to run away. What’s up?’

  Gerald took a deep breath. ‘I’m worried about Alisha.’

  ‘No kidding. We all are. Someone’s tried to kidnap her twice.’

  ‘No, not that,’ Gerald said. ‘That bandit girl. She said something to me.’

  Ruby’s brow wrinkled.

  ‘It was a warning,’ Gerald said. ‘A warning that the Guptas couldn’t be trusted.’

  ‘What? That doesn’t mean anything. A criminal will say anything to get out of trouble.’

  Gerald shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. The girl whispered to me…said it so Alisha couldn’t hear.’

  ‘Said what, precisely?’

  ‘She said the Guptas were no friends of the fraternity.’

  Ruby stared hard at Gerald while she took in what he’d just said.

  ‘How could she possibly know about that?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Gerald said. ‘She couldn’t know about it—unless…’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘Unless the fraternity and the cult are the same thing.’

  Ruby gazed off towards the end of the platform. ‘You’re saying that the fraternity—the group your great aunt wanted you to join—is a death cult?’

  ‘It’s too much of a coincidence that the cult has the same symbol as my family seal,’ Gerald said. ‘This just nails it. The people who are trying to kidnap Alisha are directly linked to my family.’

  They reached the front of the queue. Gerald pointed at a dozen different fried pastries and concoctions. ‘We need to be careful around Alisha,’ he said. He paid for the food and they turned to head back to the carriage.

  ‘You think Alisha is hiding something?’ Ruby said.

  ‘You don’t think it’s strange that her father invites us all the way out here? The man who owns the diamond that started this whole fiasco. And for what? A thank you? And then our fantastic bodyguard Fry somehow misses the train and we’re all alone?’

  ‘What? You think Miss Turner was making goo-goo eyes at Fry so she could get him out of the way?’

  ‘Well it couldn’t be because she fancies him.’

  Ruby walked in silence, dodging through the crowd. ‘So the cult that dug that burial chamber under Beaconsfield, the three brothers who took the caskets out of Rome, the girl who tried to kidnap Alisha, and the fraternity that wants to know whether you’re ready…they’re all part of the same thing?’

  ‘That’s my guess,’ Gerald said.

  ‘So this whole trip has been a set-up?’

  ‘Sure. Who’s to say that Mr Gupta isn’t looking for the other caskets himself? He’s a businessman. Maybe he wants a part of the action. And he’s got Alisha tagging along with us in case we find anything.’

  ‘What about Lethbridge?’ Ruby asked. ‘It was Mr Gupta’s idea that he tag along.’

  ‘Exactly. Silly old Lethbridge. Maybe he’s not as dim as he seems.’

  ‘And you think they’re all working for Sir Mason Green?’

  Gerald shook his head. ‘I think Green and his scrawny mate are a separate nightmare altogether. Our danger is much closer.’

  They broke out of the crowd and saw Alisha at the far end of the platform still tapping away at her phone.

  ‘And don’t you think it’s odd that her phone can’t get any reception here?’ Gerald said. ‘How do we know she’s not texting her dad or Miss Turner or even Lethbridge to let them know what we’re up to?’

  Ruby didn’t respond.

  ‘We just need to play it cool around Alisha, okay?’

  Ruby stopped walking and Gerald bustled into her. She spun around and there were tears in her eyes. ‘I don’t believe it,’ she said. ‘Alisha’s not like that at all.’ She turned and ran ahead, leaving Gerald and his accusations alone on the platform.

  ‘Still no signal,’ Alisha said to Gerald when he got back to the carriage. He grunted a reply. They climbed inside as the train started to move off.

  ‘I don’t understand why Miss Turner wasn’t waiting for us at the station,’ Alisha said.

  ‘Maybe she and Fry had better things to do,’ Ruby said.

  ‘Well, what about Constable Lethbridge?’

  ‘I think wherever you find Miss Turner you’ll find Constable Lethbridge,’ Ruby said.

  Gerald laid the parcels of food on the table. He looked at Ruby, but she refused to catch his eye.

  They tucked into a feast of pickles, chapattis, parathas and samosas, eating in silence. Ruby, Sam and Alisha still seemed to be half asleep. But not Gerald. If people could be over tired, he was over awake. He wanted some answers. And he wanted them now.

  ‘Alisha, why did that bandit girl say the Guptas couldn’t be trusted?’ Gerald said. ‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’

  ‘Gerald!’ Ruby’s eyes blazed. ‘Don’t you dare!’

  Alisha opened her mouth to respond, then stopped. It looked like she was fighting back tears. After a moment she tried again.

  ‘Someone has tried to kidnap me. Twice. They’ve used a knife and a gun. And they haven’t been gentle.’ She rolled up her shirt sleeve. Dark purple bruises ringed her upper arm. Ruby gasped at the welts. ‘And you take the word of that thug over mine.’

  Gerald was aware of the accusing looks he was receiving from Sam and Ruby. But he was determined. ‘Why would she warn me about you?’

  Ruby pushed away from the table. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’ There was a break in her voice.

  Alisha straightened in her chair and composed herself. ‘My father is a wealthy man,’ she said quietly. ‘Gerald, you should know what that means. You become a target.’

  Gerald’s mind flashed back to the days after he inherited his great aunt’s fortune, and the turmoil that it caused amongst his relatives and in the media. He felt a little uneasy.

  ‘My family dates back to the Gupta kings of the fourth and fifth centuries,’ Alisha said. ‘They ruled over the golden age of the Indian empire. There was art, poetry and culture like the world had never seen. My father says I have no appreciation of my history. He is wrong. I am very proud to be a Gupta. But over fifteen hundred years we have attracted enemies, some who can bear a grudge for a very long time. And now you come here. You impose yourself on my family’s hospitality and you accuse me of treachery.’

  ‘I’m imposing on you?’ Gerald said, his voice rising.

  ‘Besides, Gerald,’ Alisha said coolly,
‘I’m more interested in why some common bandit is calling you by your first name and kissing you on the lips.’

  ‘What!’ Ruby and Sam chorused.

  Alisha sat back with a look of triumph in her eyes.

  Gerald blushed. ‘She caught me by surprise,’ he mumbled.

  ‘No kidding, stud,’ Sam said. ‘Did you manage to get her number? Or were you too busy playing tonsil hockey while we were out in the rain dodging the bad guys.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Really?’ Sam was up for the fight. ‘Because that’s exactly what it sounds like.’

  Gerald looked to Ruby for support. She stood at the end of the carriage, her arms held tight across her chest, her face a portrait of disappointment. ‘I can’t believe you kissed her,’ she said.

  Three sets of eyes drilled into Gerald. He lowered his head onto the table. That hadn’t gone the way he’d hoped at all.

  For the next few hours the chairman’s carriage played host to a three-cornered sulk-off. Ruby and Alisha hunkered down on an L-shaped couch and spoke non-stop in a buzz of low whispers. Sam retreated to his bunk, wrapped himself inside his mummy’s tomb and went back to sleep. Gerald stayed seated at the table where his friends had abandoned him.

  He couldn’t understand why Ruby didn’t believe him. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced. Alisha was with them to discover where the second casket was hidden. Whatever it contained, it was valuable enough to attract Mr Gupta’s attention.

  And what about this fraternity, or cult, or what -ever it was? His great aunt had wanted him to join— that much was clear—and Professor McElderry’s discoveries under Beaconsfield all pointed to it as well. His family and the fraternity were linked across a history spanning the millennia. If the fraternity thought the Guptas couldn’t be trusted, maybe Gerald had to consider that possibility as well. And that bandit girl? Gerald pressed his fingers to his lips—she’d been pretty convincing too.