‘But you’re the chaos theory queen,’ Gerald said. ‘If they hadn’t come here and killed the Oracle I would never have been born.’
‘Gerald, you’ll do your head in thinking like that. Let’s concentrate on finding Charlotte and getting you off your own murder charge.’
Gerald knew Ruby was right—she had a knack for keeping him on course.
The crush of tourists at the museum entrance had thinned, but inside the building was crowded. Nico elbowed through a clutch of older Americans who were all wearing identical sneakers, bum bags and trucker caps. Gerald, Sam and Ruby followed him.
‘So what are we going to find in here?’ Sam asked. They were in a large gallery filled with statues.
‘Nico?’ Ruby said. ‘Has any of that treasury gold been found around here? Some random coins, or something?’
The boy shook his head. ‘Not a coin, not a gem. It was all stolen by the Roman assassins.’
Gerald stared down at his feet. He didn’t want to catch anyone’s eye.
The tour group poured into the gallery and surrounded two large marble statues in the centre of the room. Their guide, a short woman with a severe haircut, plopped down a three-legged stool and stepped onto it.
‘Here are two of the greatest finds from the ancient city,’ the woman began. ‘The twin brothers, Castor and Pollux…’
‘We’re not going to find anything here,’ Gerald said. ‘We might as well go.’
‘…archaeologists had almost given up hope of finding any examples of the art of the region—the site had been quite picked over…’
‘Are you sure?’ Ruby said to Gerald. ‘Shouldn’t we find out more about the treasure? Ask an attendant or something?’
‘…but these two beautiful specimens remind us just how popular the cult of the twins was at the time…’
Gerald shook his head. ‘Maybe, on the way out,’ he said. He didn’t wait for the others; he turned and squeezed through the crush of bodies between him and the exit. Before he could make it to the door, his path was blocked by a tall figure in dark clothes.
‘Excuse me,’ Gerald said, not looking up, ‘could I get past please?’
The sound of the reply froze his blood.
‘Aren’t you going to say hello, Gerald?’
Gerald looked up and found himself staring into the venomous face of Charlotte Green.
Chapter 21
The gallery was packed. Bodies pressed against bodies. The air conditioning strained to fend off the heat. But the buzz of conversation, the flash of holiday snaps being taken and the ebb and flow of the crowd were all invisible to Gerald. The only other person in the room was the woman who had twice tried to kill him.
The smile painted on her face was a pancake of malice and lies. Charlotte raised her hand and casually removed an ivory hairpin from a scroll at the back of her head. She tossed her chin and shook her tresses loose to cascade over her shoulders. Gerald watched as she eased a silver stopper from the end of the hairpin, revealing a grey-blue point.
‘I have dipped this in poison,’ Charlotte said, as calmly as if she was inviting Gerald for a pot of tea. ‘It is a concoction of my own making. There is no antidote. No cure. A simple scratch on your skin and you will die the most excruciating death.’
Gerald focused on the tip of the hairpin just centimetres from his cheek.
‘A thing of beauty, isn’t it?’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s carved from the tusk of an African bull elephant.’ She paused for a second. ‘I killed it.’ The statement had the desired effect on Gerald. His face turned white. ‘I was on safari in Kenya,’ Charlotte said. ‘I brought it down with a single dart to the neck.’ She spoke as if it was her proudest moment.
Before Gerald could respond, a jolt of surprise flickered in Charlotte’s eyes. Nico was standing beside her, the top of his head barely up to her waist. He held a switchblade in his right hand and was pressing the point hard into Charlotte’s ribs. His grim stare showed he wasn’t fooling around.
Charlotte shot a venomous glance at Gerald. ‘You couldn’t afford a full-size bodyguard?’
Gerald took a pace back, getting some distance between him and the hairpin. Sam appeared behind Nico and pulled him out of range.
‘And the gang’s all here,’ Charlotte said, as Ruby emerged from the crowd. ‘So nice to see you again, Miss Valentine. And don’t you look beautiful, even in this heat. Isn’t it frightful?’
Ruby scowled. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘The same as you I expect, my dear.’
Gerald found his voice. ‘You think the Oracle’s treasure is still here?’
Charlotte cocked an eyebrow, ‘You have come up to speed,’ she said. ‘And there was my uncle thinking you didn’t know anything about your family secret. Naturally the treasure, as you so quaintly put it, is still here. But, unlike you, I have the means to unlock it.’
‘The three golden rods,’ Gerald said.
‘Isn’t this a lovely irony then,’ Charlotte said, looking at Gerald, Sam and Ruby. ‘Three against one.’
‘Four!’ Nico piped up.
Charlotte peered at the boy. ‘Three and a half,’ she said. ‘Now, before you get any wild ideas of calling for help, you should know there is enough poison on this pin to kill a dozen people.’ She narrowed her eyes and stared at Gerald. ‘You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, would you?’
‘You are a vile human being,’ Ruby said.
Charlotte swung her gaze onto Ruby and Sam, then to the tip of the hairpin, as deadly as a scorpion’s tail.
‘I should have killed you in France when I had the chance,’ she said. She whipped the hairpin in front of her. Ruby recoiled, her eyes wide. A mirthless laugh fell from Charlotte’s lips, then she slipped the silver stopper back into place.
‘I don’t know what you’re hoping to achieve here,’ she said. ‘You can’t possibly go to the police—there’s an international warrant for your arrest. You have no clue where to find your so-called treasure, and I hold the only key.’ She slid the hairpin back into place. ‘I suggest you leave Delphi. The next time we meet, it may not be so crowded.’
Charlotte turned towards the exit, but before she could take a step Nico jumped high and lashed out with his hand. Charlotte swayed her head back, but not fast enough. Nico’s fist closed around a gold ring suspended on a leather strap around her neck. With a sharp tug, he broke the leather and was halfway to the exit before Charlotte realised what had happened. Gerald, Sam and Ruby stood rooted to the spot.
Charlotte glared at them. ‘It appears your bodyguard is also a thief,’ she said, struggling to contain her fury. And she stalked out of the museum.
Gerald let out a long breath. ‘We better go find Nico,’ he said. ‘Just in case she’s going after him.’
‘I don’t think she’ll bother,’ Ruby said. ‘She’s after bigger things than one of your family signet rings.’
Gerald stared back into the gallery. The tour group was taking it in turns to be photographed next to the ill-fated twins, Castor and Pollux.
Gerald had the uneasy feeling that his own quest was heading for an ill-fated conclusion as well.
Chapter 22
By the time Gerald, Sam and Ruby made it back to Nico’s house, Ruby was worried.
‘What if Charlotte caught him?’ she said. ‘What if she’s done something to him?’
Gerald did his best to reassure her, but every minute that went past with no sign of Nico only added to her fears. Nico’s aunt didn’t understand their attempts at mime and she didn’t seem worried that Nico wasn’t about.
Ruby had almost convinced Gerald and Sam that they’d have to go to the police when Nico popped his head around their bedroom door.
‘Nico!’ Ruby said, dragging him into the room. ‘Are you all right?’
He gave Ruby one of his earnest looks, unsure what the fuss was about.
‘Why would I not be all right?’ he asked. ‘I’m not a child.’
; Nico pulled his hand from his pocket. Resting in the palm was the ring that he had snatched from Charlotte’s neck. He gave it to Gerald.
‘What made you grab this from Charlotte?’ Gerald asked. Nico shrugged and pointed to the pair of identical rings that Gerald was wearing.
Gerald nodded, then he worked the ring off his right hand. He gave one to Sam and one to Ruby.
‘Does this mean we’re engaged?’ Sam said.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Ruby said. She slipped on the ring and stared down at the gold band on her little finger. ‘Thank you, Gerald. This means a lot.’
Gerald raised and lowered a shoulder. ‘It’s probably time the brotherhood was reformed,’ he said. ‘Though with less murder this time around.’
Sam twisted the ring into place. ‘Well here’s cheers to the three musketeers.’
Nico leaned up against the doorway and looked first to Gerald, then to Ruby and finally Sam. ‘Who is this woman from the museum? Why did she threaten you?’
Gerald knew he owed Nico some answers but he was too exhausted to explain the whole story. ‘She’s trying to find the lost treasure of Delphi and we’re trying to stop her.’
Nico stared at him blankly. ‘Why? What does it matter to you if she finds it?’
‘I guess it doesn’t really matter,’ Gerald said. ‘It’s more the way that she’s going about it.’
‘The way?’
‘It’s a long story. Let’s just say that we need to find her so we can let the police know where she is.’
Nico thought about this for a second. ‘I know where she is,’ he said.
There was a silence in the room.
‘You know where Charlotte is?’ Ruby said.
‘Of course. I followed her after she left the museum.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Sam said.
Nico transferred his gaze to Sam. ‘You didn’t ask me.’
‘Oh for…okay, I’m asking you now: where is she?’
‘I followed her to a house just north of the town. A big place overlooking the valley.’
Gerald pulled his backpack from under the bed. ‘Can you show us where it is?’
‘Of course.’
Ruby fixed Gerald with a questioning look. ‘I thought you just wanted to find Charlotte and let the police do the rest.’
‘Yeah, that was the plan. But like Charlotte said, that’s pretty hopeless now. It was probably always fairly hopeless. We need to give the police a reason to be interested in her.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sam asked.
Gerald flipped open the top of his pack and sorted through the contents. ‘There’s no point going through a replay of the Mason Green trial. We need more evidence that she’s the killer than just our say so.’
Ruby nodded. ‘Gerald’s right. We need some proof she at least had a motive to kill her uncle.’
‘How do we get that?’ Sam said. ‘All the evidence points to Gerald being the killer.’ He glanced across at Gerald. ‘Sorry, but it does.’
Gerald pressed his lips together. ‘Not all the evidence. The blowgun may have been found in my room, but where would a kid get that kind of poison? Maybe we can find something to tie Charlotte to the poison dart that killed Green.’
‘And take the suspicion off you,’ Ruby said. ‘Great idea.’
‘I hope so,’ Gerald said, ‘because I’m running out of them.’
The late summer evening sky lost the last of its light shortly after ten o’clock. Four heads appeared on the ridge above the house, barely distinguishable from the boulder-strewn landscape around them. Nico led them to a nest of rocks that provided a vantage point over-looking a floodlit courtyard on the other side of a wire fence. Gerald dropped in beside Sam and surveyed the scene. Beyond the expanse of the courtyard was the top floor of a modern house, which stepped down over a number of levels following the slope of the hillside.
‘How do we do this?’ Sam asked. ‘Just climb over the fence?’
‘I guess so,’ Gerald said. ‘It’s only a couple of metres high. We should be able to get over easily enough. Nico, any idea where the front door is?’
Nico pointed to a corner of the house cast in shadow. ‘The woman went in over there,’ he said. ‘There is a path that leads to the other side of the house.’
Gerald nodded. ‘Seems easy enough. Watch for my signal and come down.’
Gerald made his way down the slope as quietly as he could, taking care not to dislodge any stones with his shoes. He edged into the pool of light at the front gate and looked both ways. The fence was easily two metres high and stretched along the boundary out of sight.
He peered into the courtyard. It was a good twenty paces to the front of the house. He looked back up the slope and could just make out the shape of three heads; he thought he saw Sam give him a thumbs up.
Gerald was about to reach up and grab hold of the wire fence when he saw a small yellow sign attached to the gate—a sign with a red lightning bolt on it.
Are you kidding me? An electrified fence?
Gerald looked back to the silhouettes on the hillside, an expression of defeat on his face. All he got back was another thumbs up from Sam.
‘Oh for crying out loud,’ Gerald mumbled. He kicked about the ground until he found what he was looking for: a stout stick, about a metre long.
This better work, or it’s barbequed Gerald.
He edged the stick between the bottom two wires of the fence and ground the end of it into the dirt on the far side. Then he pushed up on the stick, levering the upper wire as high as he could. Gerald felt the pulse of the electricity conducted into the stick: a dull thump, thump, thump.
He put a rubber-soled shoe onto the bottom wire and opened up the gap even further. Gerald looked at the two wires; each carried enough voltage to blow him back up the hill to Sam, Ruby and Nico. He swallowed hard and squatted to duck through the gap.
Then he heard the breathing.
For a second he thought the short, tight breaths were his own. But with a sickening rupture in his stomach, Gerald knew he had company. He lifted his eyes to see the sharp end of a guard dog pointed right at him, barely two metres away.
A Doberman.
A very large Doberman. Black and tan and mean, with a metal-spiked collar around its neck.
The dog stood perfectly still. The only movement was the rapid-fire pumping of its chest. Its eyes were black beads. It stood close enough for Gerald to see the stippled surface of its nose, glistening wet in the floodlights.
Gerald was paralysed. He could feel the stick in his hand, his only possible weapon. But he couldn’t convince his arm to move. His brain was focused on the Doberman’s head—the power of its jaws, the laser intensity of its stare.
The dog peeled back its top lip in a snarl, revealing perfect white fangs.
Its muscles were tightening, its shoulders tensing like a spring.
Then it leapt.
It sprang forward with impossible speed, launching its bared teeth at Gerald’s throat. All four paws were off the ground; it was a flesh and bone missile.
Gerald fell back with a cry, driving with his legs as hard as he could. He lost his grip on the stick and the fence wires snapped back into place—right onto the dog’s metal-spiked collar.
A white halo of sparks exploded around the dog’s head. The shock jolted the beast through the air. It landed metres back inside the compound. The floodlights shorted and the area was plunged into darkness.
Gerald landed with a thud on his back. He lay there for a second, waiting for the Doberman to tear his throat out. But instead of the black eyes of the guard dog, Gerald was surprised to see Ruby, Sam and Nico staring down at him.
‘Nice job, Gerald,’ Sam said. ‘Dog problem and electric fence problem solved in one simple step. Too easy.’
Gerald sat up and rubbed his neck. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Too easy.’
They clambered through the fence and past the prone shape of the Doberman.
&nb
sp; ‘It’s breathing,’ Ruby said.
‘I’d rather not be here when it wakes up,’ Gerald said. ‘Let’s make this quick.’
Nico led the way to the front door. He tried the handle. It was locked. They ducked down the side of the house, descending a steep line of steps cut into the hillside. There was a light in a window at the very bottom of the building. Gerald motioned for the others to follow. He moved close to the side of the house until the light from the window washed across his face.
He eased an eye around the corner and peered inside to see a large dining room with a long table running down its centre. The end wall was made entirely from glass and provided an uninterrupted view of the valley and the distant harbour lights. A wooden chandelier suspended from the ceiling lit the room with at least two dozen flickering candles.
‘The table’s set for two,’ Ruby whispered. ‘Charlotte must have a guest.’
The remains of a simple meal sat on the table, together with a half-drunk bottle of red wine.
There was no sign of anybody.
Gerald looked along the side of the house back towards the top of the slope. ‘Feel like having a look around? There’s an open window up there.’
Ruby tucked her fingers under the edge of the window and eased it open. With a light kick, she hauled herself up and slid inside. A second later she reached out a hand to pull Nico up; Sam and Gerald followed.
‘Come on Gerald,’ Ruby said as he landed on the carpeted floor. ‘Time for some mischief.’
Gerald fumbled in his backpack and pulled out his headlamp. A shaft of light cut into the darkness, illuminating the inside of a large, empty walk-in wardrobe.
‘How do you know Charlotte’s not asleep on the other side of that door?’ Ruby whispered.
Gerald put his hand on the door handle. ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ he said. He extinguished his headlamp and waited a few seconds for their eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then he opened the door.
The bedroom was empty. Gerald tiptoed across the carpet and opened the door a crack. There was no movement in the hall. Slowly, he inched the door wider and slipped through. The glow from the candles in the dining room filtered up from the right. Gerald edged along the corridor like a curious moth.
The Mask of Destiny Page 20
