Artifact

by Gigi Pandian

“You don’t believe me?” he said. “No bleeding way I could get out of the country on my passport. I’m supposed to be dead.”

  “But then how—”

  “Some lucky nutter’s got the ruby, then?”

  “No,” I said, feeling suddenly claustrophobic in my surroundings. “It’s safe.”

  Relief showed on Rupert’s face. I, however, was less than reassured. I should have been happy it was Rupert who had been following me in London. But I wasn’t. That meant someone else had broken into my apartment in San Francisco. Someone who Rupert knew nothing about.

  If he could be believed.

  “Rupert,” I said, “tell me what’s going on. Why did you write that you needed my help?”

  “Right, then....” he trailed off.

  “You conceited bastard! You let me think you were dead.”

  I tried to pace around the small quarters. I had to do something to quash the urge to hit Rupert again.

  “Hold on, then,” Rupert said. “I tried to get in touch with you. You didn’t get any of my messages? Is that why you’re angry?”

  “Messages? Really, Rupert.”

  “I emailed you first.”

  “Where?”

  “At your email account,” he said tersely.

  “The university one you knew from when I was finishing my degree? I don’t use that anymore.”

  “Bloody hell, how am I supposed to know that? I rang up and left you a message, too. Your old mobile phone number I knew didn’t work, so I called that other number you had. I left a message on the machine. You can’t say I didn’t try.”

  That explained the phone call from my brother. I needed to remember to yell at Mahilan later for all the trouble his Hindi-only policy was causing.

  Rupert took my silence for annoyance directed at him.

  “It’s not easy to track people down when running for your life,” he said, tugging at the sleeve that covered his bandage. “You never gave me your new number. I only had your address since you sent me that graduation card—”

  “You kept it?”

  Rupert’s cheeks flushed.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “The point is, I’m trying to protect you.”

  I tried to scoff. I’m pretty sure it came out more like a snort.

  “Someone did try to kill me,” he said, the blue in his eyes shining brightly with urgency. He held up his bandaged arm for me to see.

  “I thought I needed your help,” he said. “But then it didn’t seem worth it once things got more dangerous. I never in a million bleeding years thought you’d show up after you’d gotten my messages asking you to do nothing except hang onto the artifact for me.”

  “What the hell is going on, Rupert?”

  “Listen, love,” he said, pulling me down onto the seat next to him. He kept my hand in his. I didn’t try to remove it.

  “I sent you that ruby before I knew how dangerous this whole business was. I thought I was being cautious when I sent the artifact to you. But now...now it’s best you go home and stay out of it.”

  “I’m already involved.”

  “I’ll still give you a cut,” Rupert said, caressing my hand. “Not that wanker, but you—”

  “That’s not what I mean.” I pulled my hand away. “Someone besides you knows about it. Weren’t you listening to me? He broke into my apartment. He also hurt the person who interrupted him.”

  “That’s not possible,” Rupert said, rubbing his jaw slowly. “Your burglary can’t be related. Only a few people know about it. They’re all still at the...ah....”

  “I already know about the dig.”

  “You do?”

  “I also know you quit your job lecturing, and that you and Knox are in over your heads.”

  Our faces were inches apart in the small space. Rupert’s face looked even more haggard up close. I spotted a few strands of gray in his hair.

  “I can help,” I said. “You did ask for my help, remember?”

  He smiled. His eyes moved over my face.

  “There is one way you can help,” he said. He moved in to kiss me again. I stopped him by pressing my fingertips to his lips.

  “Tell me,” I said.

  He laughed gently, shaking his head from side to side.

  “Oh, Jaya,” he said. “I knew I had to see you again.”

  “Dammit, Rupert. I came all this way to find out what got you killed. You better start telling me what’s going on.”

  “I really don’t know.” He wasn’t laughing any longer.

  “Fine,” I said. “Then I’ll formulate my own hypothesis. You and Knox stole a valuable piece of ancient jewelry. You stupidly bragged about it, so then you needed to go into hiding, hoping things would blow over. That’s why you quit your position. You found a remote dig where you could lay low for the summer. Only you didn’t realize Knox’s photograph would be posted on the dig’s website. Whoever you stole the piece from was able to find you easily after seeing the picture. They tried to kill you, so you played dead so they wouldn’t try it again—I haven’t worked out how you managed that yet. But whatever the answer is, the best thing for me to do is to drop off the bracelet with Interpol, and take you to a doctor.”

  “Christ, don’t do that,” Rupert said, his face pale. “That’s not what happened. It’s not stolen, I swear.”

  “Why should I believe you if you don’t tell me where it’s not stolen from?”

  “Have I ever let you down before? Wait, don’t answer that. You’ve at least got to believe me that we’re both safer if they think I’m dead.”

  “Who are they?”

  “I’m not sure. Honestly!”

  The exclamation took the wind out of him. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. He didn’t look well.

  “Knox and I found out something...how should I put this? Something interesting,” he said, looking back up at me with his elbows resting on his knees. “Before we had a chance to find it—”

  “Stop,” I said. “You had the bracelet already. You’re after more. I get that. But you don’t know where the treasure is?”

  “Of course we don’t know where it is.” Rupert blinked at me. “Why else would we bother asking for help?”

  Chapter 19

  My head spun as the train rocked back and forth.

  “Go on with the story,” I snapped.

  “Right. Before we learned where the treasure was, someone cut the brakes of my car—that brilliant old Jeep, remember?—and I barely got out before it went over the edge of the road onto the rocks below.” He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt so I could see the full extent of the injury.

  “Have you got any idea how steep it is up around Aberdeen?” he asked. “The students go rock climbing on those cliffs.”

  I nodded distractedly as I looked at the ragged bandage. Unless he was faking it, his injuries were serious.

  “It was right at the edge of the ocean,” he said. “I figured I could make like I had been swept out to sea with the tide. You were right, I thought it would be best if everyone thought I was dead. I was already covered in blood from getting scraped up when I jumped out of the car. I climbed down the rocks and let myself bleed some more on the rocks next to the Jeep. For good measure and all that.”

  “You’re pretending to be dead so you can find your attempted killer?”

  “Well, of course that would be nice, too. Don’t look at me like that! I thought I could have the whole treasure bit sorted out in a few days, once I had total freedom without whoever is out to get me still after me. Then I thought I could show up and pretend I’d had amnesia from the accident. My head did get a right bump.” He let go of my hand and rubbed his jaw again.

  “It’s been more than a few days,” I said. Sometimes I wondered if Rupert was for real.

 
“I wasn’t as fit as I would have liked, was I? I only got myself sorted a couple of days ago. I came down to London to look something up. Been searching the bloody library for days. Luckily nobody pays attention to you if you keep your head down in a library. That’s when I saw you and that bloke.”

  “But you hadn’t requested any materials on the Mughals.”

  Rupert’s eyes narrowed. My breath caught.

  “You were looking at something else,” I said. “Tell me.”

  I took his hand back in mine, which he readily surrendered, then squeezed his forearm. He yelped and pulled away. A new spot of blood showed on the bandage. He wasn’t faking his injuries.

  “You’re brutal,” he said, rubbing his arm.

  “I had to be sure you weren’t faking it.”

  Rupert wisely kept his mouth shut.

  I opened my bag and removed a packet of bandages. Yes, when searching for a murderer in a foreign country I find it wise to carry first aid.

  “I’ve already got some, if you haven’t noticed,” he said.

  “You don’t appear to be using them very well.” I winced when I saw the gash on his arm. “Did you wrap this yourself?”

  I pulled off the last of the sloppily wrapped bandage with only a minor protest from Rupert.

  “You should have seen the car.” He tried to laugh.

  “Did anyone try to kill Knox?” I asked.

  Rupert didn’t answer immediately. He watched me open a packet of strong-smelling antiseptic, avoiding looking at me.

  “If they didn’t,” I continued, “that would suggest—”

  “I know,” he said. “That would suggest he was in on it.” He squirmed as I wiped the antiseptic across his arm.

  “Have you told him you’re alive?”

  “I can’t believe my best mate would try to kill me.”

  “But you haven’t told him.”

  “No.” He rested his hand on my knee. “You’re the only one I can trust, love.”

  “How sweet,” I said through my teeth, “since you’ve so conveniently forgotten that you asked for my help.”

  “Before I knew what was going on!”

  “It still doesn’t sound like you know what’s going on.” I finished with his new-and-improved bandage and sat back.

  “Not exactly.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “That would be telling.”

  I pushed his hand off my leg and stood up.

  “Why did you follow me and pull me in here?” I asked.

  “I wanted to know what you were doing. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I wish people would stop thinking I can’t take care of myself.”

  “Other people are saying that?” He wiggled his arm around, getting a feel for the new bandage. “Who’s the bloke?”

  “An art history graduate student at Berkeley. He was helping me identify the artifact, since you failed to do so.”

  “Are you an item?”

  “My love life is none of your business. Not anymore.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Why did you follow him rather than me yesterday afternoon?” I tried pacing again, but failed as my arms kept bumping into furniture in the small compartment. “You could have talked to me.”

  “I was going to,” he said. “After I got a sense of what you were doing, I was working my way up to it. But then you hailed a cab and I lost you.”

  “You didn’t follow me in another taxi?”

  “As if a cab would do such a daft thing for a fare. No. I went back to the library, where I had first seen you. I didn’t find you, but I found him. What’s his name?”

  “Lane.”

  “Do you really have to look at me like that? I thought you were grateful I was alive.”

  “How did you find us today?”

  “I was hoping Lane would lead me back to you last night, but I lost him. Based on what you were doing, I thought you’d go next to the address on the package I sent you. I remembered how much you love trains, so I knew you’d take the train. I waited at the station since six this morning. You used to be a morning person.”

  He yawned and closed his eyes. He wasn’t just tired. He needed a doctor. Ashen skin stretched over his gaunt face. I wondered if he’d gotten an infection from his injuries. Though I’d done my best with my small first-aid kit, the cut on his arm didn’t look good.

  “Aren’t there anonymous free clinics in this country?” I asked. “Isn’t that what the NHS does?”

  He opened his eyes and smiled. I saw a hint of the unidentifiable charm I had once known.

  “I’ll be all right,” he said. “I’d be better if I could convince you to go home. No? I didn’t think so. At least give me whatever mobile number you’re using now, so we can keep in touch.”

  “We’re not splitting up.”

  In the close quarters all he had to do to reach me was lift up his good arm. He pulled me down onto his lap.

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” I said, extricating myself from his grip.

  “My idea was more fun, though.”

  “You hardly look up to it.”

  “That would be my cue to change the subject if I know what’s good for me. Right. I’m not going to talk you out of going to the dig. I know you well enough for that. I can’t go with you, you understand. You’ll be my eyes and ears, as they say. You can keep an eye on them. You can figure out who tried to do me in.”

  “While you do what exactly?”

  “Find the treasure, of course.”

  Chapter 20

  In spite of repeated threats that I would murder him myself, I couldn’t get any more details about the treasure from Rupert. He insisted everything was now under control. Except for the small detail of an unknown murderous villain on the loose.

  He didn’t want to “burden” me with whatever plot he and Knox had hatched, including the small detail of why he thought I could help him in the first place. To put my mind at ease, he assured me it wasn’t illegal and would not offend my integrity. In spite of this fact, he turned a shade paler each time I mentioned the idea of turning to the police for help.

  He insisted it had to have been someone at the dig or at the Fog & Thistle Inn who had attempted to kill him. Nobody else could possibly have known what they were up to. The dig and their housing were close quarters, so it was entirely possible that someone learned he and Knox had the ruby bracelet.

  “It might be as easy as seeing who left the dig,” I said.

  “What, your burglary again? You live in a city, love. Crime happens. Luckily not while your pretty little head was at home in this case.”

  “It wasn’t a coincidence.”

  “Nothing else makes sense,” he insisted.

  But in spite of his protestations, I saw that it unnerved him.

  “Look,” he said, rubbing his sore jaw, “just promise me you won’t trust anyone.”

  As he filled me in on more details about the dig, I saw how serious he was about making sure I knew what I was getting into. Sometimes Rupert did surprise me.

  Malcolm Alpin, the professor heading up the dig, took his work seriously. Knox Bailey and Derwin McVicar were Malcolm’s crew for the summer. Since Knox withdrew from his archaeology PhD program before being formally kicked out for plagiarism, he was able to stay involved in the field to some extent. I didn’t know Derwin, an archaeology graduate student studying under Malcolm Alpin at St. Andrews.

  Rupert stressed that it was best not to offend Malcolm, as he pointed out I had been known to do to a scholar or twenty. If Malcolm didn’t like me, he would have no problem banning me from his site, even though he desperately needed additional help.

  The dig’s crew members were housed at the Fog & Thistle Inn. The landlord of the inn ran the place with his wif
e. Two local characters spent a lot of time in the small pub below the rooms, but otherwise it was a low-key establishment.

  Rupert couldn’t think of any reason that any of them would have made an attempt on his life. At the same time, he continued to insist that it had to be one of them. I was relieved to learn that nobody knew he had sent me the ruby artifact.

  His cell phone had been washed away with several other items in his Jeep. He hadn’t wasted his limited post-mortem funds on a new phone. He was dead, he said, so who was going to call him? I gave him my new number so he could reach me.

  I was trying to decide on a strategy for coercing Rupert into telling me more about the treasure he and Knox were after, when he cocked his head to one side. A smirk spread across his face.

  “It’s been lovely,” he said, standing up.

  “You’re not sending me away until I’m satisfied,” I said.

  “But I thought you said you didn’t want to—”

  Why did I only know infuriating men?

  “You’re going to tell me—”

  “This is my stop,” Rupert said. He stepped around me and grabbed the door handle.

  The screech of breaks sounded as the train slowed.

  “You can’t mean to get off here,” I said. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Precisely.”

  The train came to a halt.

  Rupert stepped forward unexpectedly and gave me a quick yet intense kiss on the mouth. He let go of me just as quickly. In my brief confusion, he slipped past me. The door slammed into me, and Rupert ran out of the compartment.

  I followed quickly, but stopped on the train’s steps. Rupert was already halfway down the platform. He must have been using all of his reserves of energy.

  Both Lane and my bag were on the opposite side of the train. I’d never catch Rupert before the train departed. As the train engine revved up, I watched his red sneakers disappear around the corner of the small town train station. The train started up again. Dumbstruck, I stood watching the platform fade into the distance.

  I returned to my seat with a cup of overpriced tea in my hands. I’d already polished off a muffin on my walk through the train cars. I didn’t need a lack of calories to make me any shakier than I already was from my encounter with Rupert.