A Richer Dust Concealed: A gripping historical mystery thriller you won’t be able to put down!

by R P Nathan

  Yet still I persisted. Shaeffer had cracked the code and had written of the moment in terms of joy, with emotion that I imagined for myself should I be able to repeat his success. So I looked through his diary to find some hint or clue to this most enduring of riddles. His words thrilled me when I read them, the energy in his discovery on the very eve of war:

  I have broken the code – or rather I know the key and it is so simple that I could almost weep with happiness. And I have discovered the truth in a moment of madness or brilliance that you Anna, dear, dear Anna (I am laughing as I write this, my heart is so gay) would have seen immediately. For there is only one way to make sense of it all: that the coded piece is a letter of course, and then the crib was so obvious as to make me think my idea was laughable.

  And so he had cracked it. Yet where was the evidence of his victory? Where was the key? Surely he was not so intoxicated with the thought of seeing Rupert and Denis again and finally entering the theatre of conflict that he would not have taken the simple precaution of preserving his discoveries on paper.

  That I should have made such discoveries tonight of all nights when I am but hours away from leaving for I don’t know where: it could be France or it could be Africa. I feel like Galois on the night before his duel, desperate to set his thoughts down but plagued also by the constant fear, je n’ai pas le temps. But I have said what I need to my dear, for you will understand and make sense of my ramblings and in any case unlike poor Galois I shall not die in a field without seconds. I shall return to you, I shall be back with you soon on terra ferma. That is the key for me. To be back by your side again to hold you and love you and share these wondrous and exciting discoveries with you.

  He was aware of the danger he faced; the talk of Galois meant he knew he might not survive despite his reassurances. So where was the key? Why had he not written it down?

  And then, after two years, on the point of giving up, I realised he had. That Shaeffer had left nothing to chance after all. That he had left two clues for Anna, one discreet, one head-turningly obvious, and yet I had seen neither until my own moment of clarity.

  For Shaeffer loved his wife. And regarded her as more than an equal to his own intellect. Therefore he left her a clue which was subtle, yet would be clear as a bright star to her, one half of their tight unit, between whom their terms of familiarity would have been long established.

  I re-read the entries leading up to this one and each started the same way, a greeting to his beloved wife, My darling Anna. Not once was there deviation, not once did he use another term of affection. Yet in this entry he departs from convention and calls her Dear Anna. Could this just be coincidence? Or was this a clue left for his wife, a crib that she might pick up on when she received the book. I cannot be certain on this but what I am sure of is I saw it, late one night, after a couple of beers with friends, the first time in ages I had been out, and I lay there as the realisation flooded me of the meaning of Shaeffer’s words:

  Only one way to make sense of it all: that the coded piece is a letter of course, and then the crib was so obvious as to make me think my idea was laughable.

  The code was a letter and now I had the crib to hand. But even more than that, before I had a chance to use it to deduce the keyword, the other clue leapt out at me and I almost wept that I had not seen it till now, so obvious was it; yet my tears turned to elation almost immediately, peals of loud and happy laughter, congratulatory guffaws at the sheer audacity of the man, that he could have been so bold in his writing:

  But I have said what I need to my dear, for you will understand and make sense of my ramblings and in any case unlike poor Galois I shall not die in a field without seconds. I shall return to you, I shall be back with you soon on terra ferma. That is the key for me.

  Chapter 42

  When I embarked upon my quest I had initially worried as to how I might feel once it was done. Whether I would be left searching for some other proxy for real life. Yet when I finally made my breakthrough I did not feel bereft that my constant occupation for two years had been reduced to a simple question of translation. I tentatively examined myself and found myself not to be as fragile as I had thought. Two years had passed; and a corner had been turned. Far from merely unlocking an obscure piece of sixteenth century code, what I had really unlocked was myself.

  ◆◆◆

  Once I had the key, decrypting the text was a relatively trivial affair. To translate the resulting Italian I enrolled in evening classes and hoped that I might meet some people in the process. I thought eventually I would travel again, to Italy or wider. And maybe once I had learnt Italian, Spanish and French would follow.

  Other changes were being wrought in me as well. I decided to give up research. I’d been as good as useless for some time in any case. And in looking for alternatives I spoke with Patrick and he got me a job in his accountancy firm, an essential break with the past.

  All the while I worked on the text, gradually improving my Italian proficiency until, a year after I’d first found the key, I had finally translated it. I read Polidoro’s words and was touched and saddened by them. But by then I had moved on. My true life had grown around me. It felt like I was standing again outside in the sunshine, in a world of colour and light and that Polidoro’s words – the search for which had helped me fill the darkness left by the death of my parents – were no longer intended for me.

  So I put the letter aside. And though I thought it all to be true, I did not feel there was any rush to go and discover the location of a treasure quite possibly long-since looted. But I hung on to my keepsakes: the papers on the walls reminded me of darker times and made me laugh now to see them; and Henry’s notebook I kept. That spoke to me of treasures even less tangible than some mythical cross; it spoke to me of love. And that was only reawakened in me truly the day I saw Sarah again.

  ◆◆◆

  Seeing Sarah again, what can I remember of that moment?

  Our eyes met. I’d remembered her eyes as being brown yet, when looked at close, they bore flecks of green and red and black. I looked into her and she looked into me but only for a moment before there was darkness.

  Our eyes met. For me it was not a turning point in itself but the confirmation of one. And for me the moment had an importance far beyond anything that Sarah could have felt as she looked at someone long forgotten. For I felt that our lives had touched again and our stories were intertwined once more, even if only for a moment. Our parallel journeys had converged even if I alone recognised it.

  And strangely I had just been thinking about her. I had not spent the previous ten years thinking of her I should say, probably hastily. But I’d thought of her from time to time, a happy memory, someone I had connected with, albeit long ago. And I happened to be thinking about her then, not constructing some athletically demanding sexual tableau for the two of us, simply thinking of her.

  When I saw her, I knew her at once, my recognitive faculties taking no more than an instant to process the changes and return a match. I looked up and she was standing there. Looking like she wanted to kill me, but there nonetheless.

  I saw her and she was no longer a girl. Her hair was bobbed now and natural brown instead of spiky dyed blonde; her figure filled out, but the more desirable because of it; her feet reddened from the flip-flops she wore, bare and blistered and sexy.

  All of this registered in a single split second. Mentally the message had got through. Unfortunately, my faculties processed physical recognition in an altogether different way. A jolt inside. A kick to the heart. And a mad muscle reflex leading inevitably, embarrassingly, to my book ending up on her foot. She yelped, which was an entirely understandable reaction and then the lights went out.

  ◆◆◆

  My process of reawakening, already under way, was accelerated by her presence. And when, through strange circumstance, we were afforded time together, we connected, just as we had in Venice. I loved her company and I allowed myself to believe that she li
ked mine. I felt an electricity when she was near that I believed could only occur when the other person felt the same, a mutual charge, a static energy that could power an interaction through frisson alone.

  But I was wrong.

  She didn’t feel the same way.

  She thought me an obsessive.

  She had said so to my face.

  Having left her and Patrick waiting for a cab in Primrose Hill, I returned to the empty lounge of my flat-share and pondered her words. The room was dark and my thoughts amplified themselves in the blackness. I closed my eyes against them, against my disappointment, but the thoughts clamoured around me. How could she have been like that? She knew that Julius had gone to Cyprus. So why couldn’t she believe the cross existed? Why didn’t she believe me? Because she did not trust my motives?

  Maybe she was right not to. I was an obsessive. How could I ever have thought that she would be interested in me? I held my head in my hands.

  But it lasted seconds only and then I set my face like stone. I had been fine before I met her and I would be fine again. In the meantime there was unfinished business to take care of. Julius business.

  I had surprised even myself at how intense my loathing was for him when I met him again at Patrick’s. The moment I laid eyes on him I knew I’d forgotten none of the put-downs or the patronising glances; nor the fact of his relationship with Sarah. All felt fresh, all rankled. And his smooth manner, his easy eloquence and his confidence – all honed by the intervening years – were enough to make me realise quite how much I still hated him.

  And now he had betrayed us. He had flown to Cyprus to steal a priceless treasure from under our noses. Did he really think I would just let him?

  My flatmates returned from the pub and switched on the lights. Blinking in the sudden white glare I knew what I had to do.

  I had not spent three years of my life trying to locate the Cross of St Peter and Paul simply for Julius Masters of all people to get there first. Only Sarah could have held me back, persuaded me against this course of action. But she had made her feelings clear. So there was no reason not to go after him now; no one to stay my hand when I finally caught up with him.

  Unless of course Loredan got to him first.

  Either way, I promised myself, this time Julius would pay.

  Chapter 43

  The earliest flight I could find was leaving Stansted for Larnaca at 5.40 am and my only way of catching it would be to crash at the airport overnight.

  I threw a few things in a bag and headed off to Liverpool Street from where I caught the Stansted Express. I sat in a corner of the carriage and tried to think rationally.

  Today was Monday.

  Julius had left some time on Saturday.

  Flights were either first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon. He would have taken the latter arriving in Ayia Napa in the small hours of Sunday morning. Potentially he could have struck out the moment it got light to identify the beach but he would have been in no hurry. He would have not expected anyone to follow him out there. If the treasure had lain hidden for four hundred years, another day or two would make no difference. He would have orientated himself on Sunday, perhaps visiting the monastery, with the intention of locating the beach today. And then maybe he was not intending to make an attempt on it until the following night. Tuesday. So there was still time. Assuming he was taking things easy.

  But what if he wasn’t? What if he had arrived on Sunday morning and was ready to recover the cross that very night. He could have found it already. Touched it. Held it. If that were the case there was nothing I could do about it and Julius would have won.

  At least until Loredan caught up with him anyway.

  I collected my tickets from the tour operator desk at Stansted from a girl in a too blue uniform. “Check in starts at 3.40am,” she said. “All the delays are over now so you should be leaving on time.”

  “Delays?”

  “The dispute with air-traffic-control in Cyprus. Nothing coming in or out for the whole of Saturday.”

  I smiled at her, at the best news I could have heard. Julius was only a day ahead of me after all.

  Outside a shuttered Dixons I found a place to hole up for the next few hours, three seats in a row, airport regulation hard plastic, but room enough. I lay out, my holdall tucked firmly under my head acting as pillow.

  It was way past midnight but the airport was still awash with noise: tannoy announcements; cleaners cruising along in their electric sanitation carts; strains of conversation and laughter from those travellers around me who couldn’t or wouldn’t sleep. I lay there looking up at the high terminal ceiling, at the grey struts and beams and lights and the black sky beyond. I wondered where Julius was at this precise moment. Patrick. Loredan. Sarah.

  I closed my eyes.

  I was woken by bustle around me. It was four o’clock. The check-in desks had opened and people were on the move. I stretched and tried to shake the grogginess from my head, then ambled over to join my queue.

  ◆◆◆

  Larnaca airport, once I got there, was heaving. I decided not to wait for the coach transfer but to get a cab. Four hours in a cramped charter flight seat was enough as far as I was concerned and though I had slept it had been fitful and I had left the plane feeling as dog-tired as when I’d got on.

  I walked out of the airport and the heat from the Cyprus morning hit me like a wall. I stood blinking at the super-bright images beyond the shade; then forced myself towards the taxi rank. When my turn came I stumbled into the back of the cab, showed the driver the name of my hotel in Ayia Napa and tried to relax. But there was no air-con and the black back seats were hot and sticky to the touch.

  We took an inland road, anodyne and featureless, and every inch of grey tarmac and concrete section reflected the heat back at me. I hadn’t brought sunglasses so I kept my eyes half closed against the glare of the Cyprus day outside.

  The drive took an hour and by the time we reached the hotel I was feeling sick and dizzy. I got my key from reception and went straight up to the room. I pulled the curtains closed, kicked off my shoes and socks and felt the tiled floor luxuriously cool beneath my bare feet. The room wasn’t dark, the strong sun still glowed through the curtains turning the whole room a muted orange. But I didn’t care. I took off my clothes, leaving them where they fell, and lay out face down and naked on the bed.

  At that moment Julius and Loredan could have been holding aloft the Cross of St Peter and Paul between them and I wouldn’t have cared. I just needed to sleep.

  Chapter 44

  I awoke at one o’clock and felt better.

  I lay there for a while in the cool bright room and just stared up at the ceiling, breathing deeply; and for an uncomplicated moment felt as happy as I had in a long time.

  I had a reasonable idea where the cross must be from Polidoro’s letter. What I didn’t know was whether Julius or Loredan had got there ahead of me. All things considered, Loredan was best avoided so number one priority had to be to track Julius down.

  And for that I had a plan.

  I figured that he would need to rent a car: the cross itself was big and he would need tools to dig it up. So I would visit the car hires in Ayia Napa, my story being that I had found a wallet belonging to Julius Masters and inside had been a receipt with the car hire company’s name on it. I wanted to return the wallet and thought they might be able to give his address on the island. The phone directory listed over fifty car rental companies in Ayia Napa and I knew it was a long shot. But I thought I would try the largest few and if I had no joy then I would strike out for the beach instead.

  But I was in luck. After only an hour and five hire shops I stumbled on the right one. Charles and Henri’s Vehicle Hire it was called, and while it didn’t sound very Greek, and the twenty year old behind the desk didn’t seem very French, when I enquired there he said, Yes, they had had a Julius Masters visit them. Yes, he had hired a car: a small red hatchback. And, Yes, the
y could tell me where he was staying: the Hotel Eleganza, which was on the other side of town. I figured I might need some transport of my own so I hired a scooter while I was there, a shiny purple Vespa.

  By now it was four o’clock. I rode over to the Eleganza which was an identikit modern hotel from the same mould as the one I was staying at. I paused in front of reception to get my story straight but was distracted by the loud music blaring from the pool area fifty yards away. I took a few steps towards it and saw on the deck a line of bikini clad girls of varying ages and sizes engaging with a row of young men in swimming trunks, bananas being passed orally between them, all supervised by an expertly tanned rep in a T-shirt which declared he was 100% Up For It.

  As I turned back to go into reception I froze in surprise. I could hardly believe it. Julius was right there in front of me. He was seated at a shaded table, surrounded by sun loungers and their slowly reddening occupants. He stared vacantly out across the pool at the antics on the opposite side. They were all trying to do press-ups now and the rep was helpfully decanting orange jelly over their rising and falling buttocks.

  The blood pounded in me at seeing Julius again and I strode over to his table and sat down. He didn’t make any movement so I rapped on the zinc top to get his attention and when he looked round I gave him a menacing stare. “I bet you’re surprised to see me!”

  Julius smiled faintly. “Nothing surprises me about this place any more.”

  “What?” I blinked at him disconcerted.

  “This place. It’s... extraordinary. It’s...” He gazed at me, his eyes searching deep into me. “It’s hell. The things I’ve seen… Oh…” His voice trailed off in a low moan.