by Scott Hunter
“It’s me. Any news?”
“Ah. Simon. Nothing yet, I’m afraid. But the police are being very helpful.”
“Right. What have they got?”
“A man and young woman were seen at the school shortly before Natasha went missing.”
“And?”
“They’re, er, following a line of enquiry.”
“Really? So they have nothing. Look, Malcolm, my mobile is always on, day or night, so don’t hesitate if anything comes up.”
“Yes, of course.”
“How’s Yvonne?”
“Well, you know. Not so good.”
“Tell her – tell her I’m doing all I can.”
“Of course. I will. Goodbye.”
Dracup joined Potzner and Sara in the lounge. Potzner raised his eyebrows.
“Nothing.”
Potzner fixed Dracup with a steady look. “We work together on this, okay? You find out something – you let me know. And vice versa.”
“If you assure me that your first interest is my daughter’s safe return, I’ll share everything I’ve got.”
“Listen, Dracup.” Potzner spoke quietly but with an audible edge to his voice. “If you play ball with me I’ll help any which way I see fit. If not, you’re on your own.” Potzner picked up his coat and made as if to leave. “Oh, there’s one more thing. I’m leaving you with a little muscle.”
Dracup exchanged glances with Sara. A moment later the doorbell rang. Potzner ushered the newcomer into the lounge. Suited, expressionless. Potzner clapped him on the shoulder. “This is Farrell. He’s a bright guy. Just do what he says, when he says, and you’ll be okay.”
“You mean we’re stuck with this gorilla?” Sara was indignant. “I can look after myself, thanks.”
Farrell’s face remained impassive. He was around the thirty mark, with an easy, laid-back manner. He wore a pair of shades pushed up onto his crew cut and a flesh-coloured earpiece in his right ear. Dracup wondered how much he knew about Red Earth. He intended to find out soon enough.
Dracup took Sara’s arm. “It’s probably a good idea.” He looked over to Farrell. “No offence.”
“None taken,” Farrell drawled.
Potzner was rummaging in his briefcase. “I suggest you make the trip to Scotland sooner rather than later. This is a hotline to the London office.” He handed Dracup a card. “Check in once a day – without fail. If you don’t, like I said before, I’ll come looking.”
Chapter 6
“There you go – Forest Avenue. Next left.” Sara folded the street map and shoved it down into the side pocket.
“Got it.” Dracup swung the car into the street and crawled along its length counting the numbers down. He glanced in the mirror. Farrell was scanning the pavements on either side of the street. Next to the agent lay the flotsam of a long journey: empty biscuit packets, juice cartons, chocolate papers.
“There!” Sara pointed.
Dracup found a space, eased the Saab along the high kerb and killed the engine.
“I’ll do the neighbourly thing.” Sara was out of the car and Farrell followed suit.
“Meet you at the front door. Ah – looks like it’s side access,” Dracup called over, and walked up the path of the old granite house. The property had been converted into two flats, according to the solicitor, and his aunt had owned the first and second floors. Dracup found the side door and strode briskly past it to the garden gate. He peered over the top. It was overgrown, neglected. His aunt would have been mortified.
“Success.” Sara appeared with Farrell in tow. She tossed the key to him and he caught it deftly by its attached piece of string.
Inside, a pile of freesheets and unopened mail greeted them. Dracup picked up the pile and began separating the post from the newspapers. To their left, a staircase led directly up from the tiny hallway. A smell of mothballs permeated the small space.
Sara was flicking the light switch. “Bit gloomy.” The bulb remained unlit. “I’m going up.”
The landing ran the length of the property and two rooms led off it to the front of the house, while at the far end the kitchen opened out to the right. A further staircase apparently led up to another floor. Sara, hands in jeans pockets, found an armchair in the living room and sat down. “It’s very quiet.” She shivered and rubbed her hands together. “And damp.”
“Darn cold, that’s for sure.” Farrell was by the curtains, looking out into the street.
“It may be worth lighting the boiler,” Dracup said tersely. “Come on. Let’s get started. I’ll take a look upstairs. You two can do the lounge and kitchen.” Dracup ascended the small wooden staircase to the top floor. There was a smell of musty linen, mothballs. On the second floor landing stood a grandfather clock, silent and cobwebbed. He quickly checked the two bedrooms, which revealed nothing but a chest of drawers in the first and a solitary iron bedstead in the second.
He took a deep breath, went back down the narrow staircase, retrieved the pile of letters and began to open each in turn. It seemed a futile exercise, but he knew that he daren’t leave anything to chance. The stakes were too high. He rubbed a bead of sweat away from his forehead and, tight-lipped, continued to slit open and discard his aunt’s correspondence.
Sara placed a hand gently on his arm. “I’ll start in this bureau.” She attempted to roll back the lid but it refused to budge. “Blast. Locked.”
“One moment, ma’am.” Farrell stepped forward and produced a set of keys. A moment later the desk was open.
“Thanks.” Sara began sifting through the various pigeonholes of the bureau. Farrell took up his position by the bay window and began a flat, tuneless hum.
Sara drummed on the bureau with her fingers. “You’re making me nervous, Farrell. I can’t concentrate. Sit down, can’t you?”
“I have to keep an eye on things, ma’am.” Farrell raised the corners of his mouth slightly and turned back to the window.
Dracup returned his attention to the letters, but his mind refused to cooperate. What if he had been in England? What if Natasha had been at home? What if Yvonne had answered the phone when he had called from the hotel? What if –
“Hey.” Sara sat on the arm of his chair. “She’ll be all right, Simon. It’ll be okay.” She squeezed his shoulder and withdrew her hand as Dracup gave a gasp of pain. “Sorry, I forgot.”
“It’s just bruising.” Dracup ran his hand through Sara’s hair. She was so beautiful. He wished he could share her optimism. He looked at the pile of letters and rubbed his eyes; a dull, throbbing headache was taking root in his temple. He pushed his chair back and took Sara’s hand in his. “I need to maintain focus. Keep occupied.”
“Well, there’s no shortage of material here. I’ve never seen so much packed into a bureau.” Sara waved a rubber-banded sheaf of papers. “Look at this lot.”
“Anything so far?”
“There’s some old photos – nothing unusual. It would help if I knew what I was looking for.”
“Let’s see.” Dracup took the bundle and quickly flicked through the photographs. “Yes. This is my grandfather – Theodore.” He held the photo up for inspection. The faded image showed a frail-looking man in his early thirties sitting in a chair by a garden pond. A young woman had a hand on his shoulder, smiling bravely for the camera although it was clear that all was not well with the sitting figure. He looked old before his time, hunched and defeated. “That’s my aunt standing next to him,” Dracup said. “This must have been at the old house – my grandfather’s – after he was institutionalized. She used to take him home at weekends. She felt it gave him some dignity. And she was sure that he felt at peace there.”
Sara took a long look at the photograph. “She has a kind face – a family trait, obviously.” She looked at Dracup and the photograph in turn.
“I don’t know about that,” Dracup said. “I can be very unpleasant when push comes to shove.”
“Usually when you’re hungry, I seem to r
emember,” Sara said. “Shall I slip down to the corner shop? And Farrell, make yourself useful –see if you can get a fire going. There must be a few logs in the garden – some coal in the bunker. Something tells me this is going to be a long haul.”
Farrell nodded. “Sure. I’ll walk you down when you’re ready. Leave the fire to me.” He left the room and they heard his footsteps on the stairs. The front door opened and closed.
“He’s driving me up the wall,” Sara said with a grimace. “Our all-American high school baseball star.”
Dracup raised his eyebrows. “I think he likes you, though... Anyway, I’m happy to have him around. We’re not the only ones interested in Theodore’s legacy.”
They settled around the small table. Dracup studied the American closely. How much did he know? He swallowed a mouthful of egg and opened with a general question. “Tell me, Farrell; are you up to speed with the 1920 expedition?”
“Yes sir. Mr Potzner has briefed me.”
“Surprised that the Ark was found?” Dracup kept his voice conversational and pleasant. Hopefully Farrell would come out with something useful.
Farrell finished his eggs and wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. He looked at Dracup and Sara in turn. “Well, you know, sir; I was brought up in the Southern states. I was right there in Sunday school from way back. I remember the stories we used to hear about Noah and all. I didn’t think a lot of it at the time, ’cause, you know, when you’re a kid, you kind of believe what the adults are telling you. There’s that trust that they’re telling you the truth. But when you get a little older, you begin to question it, you know what I mean?” He reached over and popped a can of coke.
Dracup nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”
“And then, I remember one weekend we had this visiting preacher come to our church. He spoke about the Ark and I remember thinking – wow, that’s not how I understood it at all before.”
“What was different?” Sara asked.
“Well, ma’am, he began by explaining the shape and size of this thing. People have kind of a funny notion that it was a little houseboat with giraffe poking their heads up an’ all. But it wasn’t like that. Not anyhow.”
Dracup’s curiosity was aroused, his cutlery idle on the plate.
Sara prodded him with a fork. “Eat. It’ll go cold.”
He resumed the meal automatically, waved his knife at Farrell. “Go on.”
“Yes sir. Well, I used to keep a notebook for all the sermons I heard – we were taught that in Sunday school. I looked it out the other day. The boat wasn’t shaped like a boat we would make today. It was a kind of box. The measurements given in the Old Testament, if interpreted as Egyptian cubits, would make the Ark 129 metres long, 21.5 metres wide and 12.9 metres high. This was pretty likely, the preacher said, because Moses – the author of the flood account – was educated in Egypt.” Farrell paused and grinned when he saw their faces. “I have a pretty good memory. Particularly for numbers.”
He went on, warming to his subject. “Now, if the Sumerian cubit was used, the metric equivalents would approximate 155.2 metres in length, 25.9 metres in width and 15.5 metres in height. Okay, so using the most conservative of these measurements would give the Ark approximately 40,000 cubic metres in gross volume. You remember the Titanic? Well, it’s estimated that a vessel with these kind of dimensions would have a displacement nearly equal to the 269 cubic metres of the Titanic.”
“Good grief,” Dracup said. “That’s colossal.”
“It sure is,” Farrell beamed. “You don’t get to hear about that in the kids’ story books, huh?”
“No. No, you don’t,” Dracup replied. Interesting detail; not what he was looking for, but a start anyway. He opened his mouth to ask another question but Farrell was getting into gear all by himself. Dracup let him carry on.
“Now, the account in the Bible says there were two floors in the Ark,” Farrell said. “The boat would gain a lot of stability from that design. And it would be internally strengthened.”
“So there would have been three decks altogether?” Dracup prompted.
Farrell nodded. “Right. That would yield a total of about 8,900 square metres of space.” Farrell nodded his head emphatically. “Plenty of room for a lot of animals.”
“I suppose so.” And much more, he thought. A sceptre; a sarcophagus…
“That sure is something, sir: your grandfather actually walked on the remains of this vessel.” Farrell paused to take a draught of coke. He swallowed with relish and placed the can carefully back on the table. “Now that is awesome.”
Sara spoke up. “What baffles me is why no one else has reported any sightings of the Ark. Surely with all the effort that’s been made over the last fifty years someone would have succeeded in rediscovering it? It’s a huge object, you say. How can any serious expedition miss it?”
“Well, ma’am,” Farrell replied, “those mountain ranges around Ararat are simply vast. And the altitude is a real problem. Weather conditions up there are pretty bad too.”
Dracup was thinking about the politics. “And it’s in Turkey.”
“That’s right, sir. The Turkish authorities don’t allow research expeditions a lot of leeway.”
Dracup thought about two men, bivouacked together, guideless, with the storm raging outside, and something else recorded in his grandfather’s precise copybook lettering: I saw it too. A was lifted away – not the wind.
“Have you seen the – Red Earth material?” Dracup asked. If he could just get Farrell’s confidence, put him at ease. “Potzner was telling me about the research project…”
“I’ve heard a few things, but I’m not security cleared to that level.”
“So, what have you heard?”
Farrell looked uncomfortable. “Ah – I don’t really have a lot of exposure to –”
Dracup’s frustration levels finally burst. “Look Farrell, my daughter has been kidnapped. If there’s anything you know that might help, for heaven’s sake tell us. You’re more clued up than you’re letting on, aren’t you?” Out of the corner of his eye Dracup noticed Sara watching him anxiously.
“I just have to look out for you, Professor Dracup. That’s all. I’m real sorry about your daughter.”
Dracup checked himself with an effort. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure you are, Farrell.” The American seemed genuine for all the party line stuff. One step at a time, Dracup, don’t push it. “Thanks, Farrell,” he said. And left it at that.
The fire was blazing as they reassembled in the front room. Dracup went to the pile of letters and picked the next from the heap.
Sara rubbed her hands by the fire. “Nice job, Farrell,” Sara said, straight-faced. “You must have been a Boy Scout after all.”
Farrell selected a blackened poker from the fire stand and prodded the coals speculatively. “Well, thank you, ma’am.” Dracup noticed that he held Sara’s gaze until she uncharacteristically looked away. It wasn’t hard to spot. He liked her all right.
Dracup shifted in his seat. He read the last letter and threw it on the table. Nothing. He tried to remember what his aunt had been involved in, what contacts she had had within her community. She had been a committed Christian, that much he knew, a regular church attendee. And there was her work for charities. He racked his brains. Which church had she attended? The local one, of course; Forest Avenue Baptist. He glanced at his watch: 5.21. Not too late to call at the manse. He grabbed his coat.
Sara frowned. “Where are you off to?”
“To see the minister. Won’t be long.”
“To see who?”
Farrell reached for his coat.
“No.” Dracup told him. “You stay with Sara. I’m only going up the road, and it’s still daylight.”
Forty minutes later Dracup strode briskly along Forest Avenue, a cream envelope tucked securely in his jacket pocket. His heart was thumping with adrenaline and his face wore a grim smile of triumph. He took the stairs two at a time a
nd found Farrell and Sara at the top, their faces quizzical.
“Listen to this.”
Sara and Farrell froze at the excitement in Dracup’s voice.
Dracup opened with shaking hands the letter the Reverend Anthony McPhee had produced from his filing cabinet. “It’s from the Alexandra Nursing Home, Aberdeen. From the matron.”
“But how did –?” Sara’s mouth was open.
Dracup shushed her into silence. He read the letter aloud:
Mrs Hunter
c/o Forest Avenue Baptist Church,
Aberdeen
Dear Mrs Hunter,
As we haven’t heard from you for a while, I thought I’d drop you a wee line to see how you were. We always appreciate Pastor McPhee’s visits – and all the wonderful things your church does for the home. Things here are busy as usual – we’ve had the builders in for quite a time now and the dust makes a terrible mess. But we are looking forward to the finished results and the new lounge extension should be ready by Christmas. We’re hoping to hold the carol service there as we’ll at last have plenty of room! Now, I must mention that Mr Churchill is asking for you – he won’t listen to us when we tell him you’ll no doubt pop in soon. He keeps on asking! Well, you know that he does so enjoy your visits and is keeping awfully well considering he’ll be 105 in November and is our oldest resident by a long way!
Anyway, I mustn’t keep you any longer but do accept all our best wishes. Hoping to see you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Joan Mayfield
Matron
Sara looked blankly at him, searching for significance. Dracup watched their faces for any glimmer of understanding. His words tripped over themselves as he tried to explain. “My aunt – she was a member of the local church – she did a lot of charity work in the nursing homes in the area. There was one in particular that was a favourite. Now I know why.”
