Yes, Hannah.
It was your future that concerned him most. The girls. He worried about you, your financial future and suchlike. But other than that he wasnt perhaps as depressed as one might have anticipated. Actually he was quite enthused. Gloomy yet enthused. An odd mix.
Enthused about what?
He said he had some startling new theory. Relating to the Templars. A radical new departure. Wouldnt tell me more. Probably would have gone whoosh right over my head anyway! But, yes, thats what he said, he was intellectually excited by it. Very sad, in retrospect. Did he ever publish anything?
Nothing, said Adam. Thats one of the reasons were here. Following up clues: were trying to find out what he was researching.
Nina added, Were going to Temple Bruer next.
Surtees grimaced. Temple Bruer. Ugh! Went once, cant stand the place. Too spooky, all those legends! Your father would chide me for this, for believing in ghosts! He paused then asked, So, the other reasons?
What?
You said you had other reasons, to be here?
Adam stayed quiet, waiting for Nina to answer. This was her call.
Nina said, Its the suicide. I still dont believe my dad committed suicide. Even if he was terminally ill. It just, ach, wasnt his style. And he didnt even leave a note! It doesnt make any bloody sense. She glared at Surtees. And I want to prove it. Somehow. Just somehow.
The waistcoated farmer looked at Nina with an expression of sincere sympathy, but also curiosity. I must say Archibald McLintock didnt strike me as the kind of man to take his own life. He was not a bolter, not a coward. He squared up to the world. But if not suicide then what? Perhaps the cancer spread to his brain? Sorry, awful to speculate.
Nope. He was lucid and fine at the end. Happy even. As Adam can vouch?
Adam nodded, unsurely. Nina continued, I really do think he was murdered. Or at least intimidated in some way. Forced? Hmm. I dont know.
Adam winced at the word murdered. It felt a little insane. But the farmer was looking at Nina, his expression anxious, yet knowing. Miss McLintock. It may be irrelevant but there is something just possibly
What?
Something rather peculiar.
What?
Three weeks ago, I spotted two men in the field by the old preceptory. They were staring at those little stone graves. These chaps seemed so out of place I went to talk to them.
Out of place?
Their clothes were rather odd. This was November. In the Dales. But they were wearing thin leather jackets. And city shoes! I was walking the dog, but I saw them over the gate, and they struck me as conspicuous, abnormal. So I went to have a chat, say hello as it were.
What did they look like?
Id say they were in their thirties, or so. And they were swarthy, if one is still allowed to say that! Italian or Spanish looking, I mean.
He paused, staring gravely at his glass. And, they were hostile, positively menacing.
You spoke to them?
Just one. I only heard the one man talk. He had an American accent.
A heartbeat of a silence. Adam leaned close. Did the American have tattoos?
I cant properly recall. Yes, perhaps. Why do you ask?
Doesnt matter. Nina hurried on. What else did they say?
Well. This is the sinister bit, this is the element that perhaps you ought to, ah, be aware of. When I said they were on my land, they didnt bat an eye. Instead they asked about your father, very aggressively. Did I know him? Archibald McLintock? What did I know of him? What were his reasons for visiting Penhill?
What did you tell them?
Nothing! Of course I asked them to get off my land in short order. Lucky I had Alaric with me, big boxer, big three-year-old bitch. So they sauntered to the car, and that was that, really. I watched them drive away. Most peculiar. As I say. I called your father to tell him, naturally but he seemed rather unsurprised. Perhaps alarmed, but unsurprised. Surtees sighed. That was the very last time we spoke. So. There it is. Not sure if it is relevant. I am afraid I have to go in a minute, its already dark out there.
Their drinks were finished. The conversation was finished. Surtees stood, solemnly shook them by the hand, gave his sympathies once more and exited into the dark and the cold.
All the other drinkers had left. It was just Nina and Adam in the bar, and a Christmas tree, fairylights frantically flickering, on and off.
A secret that will get you killed.
Nina was furiously texting something into her phone, her dark head bowed. A sudden, troubling notion unbalanced Adam. Nina, have you been updating the Facebook page? And tweeting?
She looked up. Sorry?
Are you still updating? Telling everyone where we are and what were doing?
Her eyes expressed innocence, then anxiety.
Yes. Of course. But-?
The whole world could be reading, Adam hissed. Anyone at all. We need to get going. Right now.
22
The American Christian Hospital, Trujillo, Peru
Dr Andrew Laraway, silver-haired, brisk and archly Bostonian, gazed sympathetically at Jessica.
You have no evidence of mercury poisoning, Miss Silverton.
Jessica knew this. Shed always known this. Before she even got here shed known this. But she just wanted to be here. To have a reason, however feeble and phoney, to escape from Zana. But she could not escape her fears, even as she ignored them. She had been pestering Laraway to explain her symptoms, even as she wanted to deny them.
I understand, Dr Laraway. Im sorry for wasting your time. Asking all these questions.
Youre not, Jessica, not at all He hesitated, for a moment. But I must ask why did you come all the way here? I imagine you are aware that cinnabar is inert. After so long.
I understand, Dr Laraway. Im sorry for wasting your time. Asking all these questions.
Youre not, Jessica, not at all He hesitated, for a moment. But I must ask why did you come all the way here? I imagine you are aware that cinnabar is inert. After so long.
Yes. I am.
So what is it, Jessica? The mild diabetes we discussed when you were last here?
No. Yes. No.
An awkward silence intervened. The doctor sighed, delicately, and looked at her. Can I ask you some personal questions, Jessica?
Yes
You seem to suffer and this is not meant to be insulting a notable concern for your health, almost an obsession? He sat back, tutted at himself. No, thats not the mot juste. My sincere apologies. You are not hypochondriac, you are clearly very intelligent, determined, hard-working, even bold. Quite admirable. And yet there is a hypersensitivity and a gentle neuroticism. Therefore, and before we go on, Id like to know more about you and your life.
This was strange, and a little unnerving. She said, All right.
Lets start with your life now, your profession? How are things professionally? Is there anything in your career that has troubled you?
Jessica knew she needed to talk about everything that was happening at Zana. But she didnt want to. So she diverted, as always. My last job was in Calcutta. She tried to seek Laraways eyes, like a truthful person. That was tough. The anthropology of poverty.
Please explain?
We had to work with these children, infants even. We had to research these poor kids that actually live under the platform at the railway station. This big British imperial railway station, you know. These street kids live there in utter poverty. They were attacked, molested, abused. I met one boy Jess shook her head. She was being candid now. This memory was brutal. He used to sleep under the platform, with a razor blade under his tongue. He showed me how to do it.
I dont understand.
The razor was to ward off attackers: men, abusers. He was eight years old.
Laraway sighed. The world is too much with us. Thats awful.
But, actually, you know, it wasnt entirely bleak. There were people helping them, charities. Some of the stories were inspiring. Kids coming from nothing, from this dire poverty, and remaking themselves. The human spirit is really there, everywhere, indomitable. In Calcutta. India. Its the best and the worst of places.
The doctor leaned forward. But what about Peru, Jessica? You never talk about what you are doing here.
Jess didnt really want to talk about Peru. But maybe, she thought, maybe she needed to talk about it. Maybe the perceptive Dr Laraway was just doing his job, and doing it well, and she needed to be honest.
There is something. Jessica inhaled, profoundly, as if she was on the stage of the Met and about to sing an aria: and maybe she was.
It took her ten minutes, fifteen, then twenty. But she told him everything. The Moche, the Muchika, the Museo Casinelli, the amputations, the intruder at Zana. Slowly and eloquently she recited the entire and recent demonology of her work in Zana.
At the end, for perhaps the only time in their acquaintanceship, Dr Laraway was entirely silenced.
It took him a long time to respond. My God, that is quite a narrative. That is indubitably extreme. Anyone would be unsettled by such a sequence of events. Really. Astonishing. And very perturbing. I have never heard of the Moche. And this man McLintock. Goodness.
Yes.
And you believe the intrusion was linked to that awful explosion last month, here in Trujillo? The Texaco garage?
Possibly.
What do the police say?
Not much, theyre looking into it. I reckon they think it is a bit far-fetched. Why should anyone be intent on destroying archaeological knowledge? It is bizarre.
Another silent hiatus. The manioc trucks were hooting in the streets below. Now Laraway swivelled in his chair, and tried a new tack.
Very well, then. Now lets talk about your background. I know some of it, but not all. Your father ah died of cancer.
Jess felt her throat close against the words. This subject. This subject. When I was seven. Yes.
Your mother is still alive?
She lives in Redondo, LA.
Laraway nodded. Then he picked up, and put down, a pen. You were witness to your fathers decline? I do not wish to sound glib or presumptuous. And I am not a psychologist. However, you must have been quite traumatized?
Jess tried not to blink too fast. To give anything away. She wanted the Sechura sea fog to slide in through the windows and fill the room and wreath her, wrap her with phantasmic shrouds, hide her away from this.
I guess I was Yep. Yes, of course it did. I was very young. My brother was much older. He took it better. Losing a father that young, like I did, I must, it must always affect a child.