by Liz Fielding
Jago’s voice came out of the darkness as astringent as the bitter aloes that one especially hated nanny had painted on her fingernails to stop her biting them. She’d chewed them anyway, refusing to submit, suffering the bitterness to spite the woman. Five years old and even then using her body to take control of her world.
The memory was just the wake-up call she needed and, using the wall as her starting point, she began to edge carefully forward on her hands and knees, casting about in wide sweeps, seeking her bag. Distracting herself from the pain in her knees as she shuffled along the broken floor by thinking about Jago.
So he found her response about trusting a man worthy of derision, did he? It had to mean that some woman had done the dirty on him in the past. The sexy creature selling her dumbed-down book on the ancient Cordilleran civilisation? He’d sounded bitter enough when she’d raised the subject.
She stopped herself from leaping to such obvious conclusions.
To the outside world she had no doubt that her trust problems would have looked that simple, too. Dismissed as the result of a couple of disastrous relationships with men who had commitment problems. She’d seen the grow-up-and-get-over-it looks from people who hadn’t a clue.
Nothing was ever that simple.
It wasn’t the men. They were no more than a symptom…
She jumped as loose stones fell in a clatter.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked nervously. What would she do if he wasn’t?
‘Just peachy,’ he replied sarcastically.
Cute. ‘You don’t actually live down here, do you?’ she asked in an effort to keep him talking.
‘No. I’ve got a house down in the village,’ He admitted, ‘but I keep a camp-bed here. I can get a lot more writing done without the constant interruptions.’ His voice seemed to come from miles away. And above her. ‘It’s about fifteen miles back.’
‘Yes, we drove through it.’
She hadn’t given a thought to the villagers. She’d seen them working in their tiny fields as they’d driven by. Small children, staring at the bus. Skinny dogs, chickens, goats…
‘I hope they’re okay down there,’ she said.
‘Me too, even though they’re probably blaming all this on me. Stirring up the old gods. Making them angry.’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing?’
‘Not intentionally. They’ll have to look further afield for those who’ve been taking their name in vain.’
Definitely the blonde, then…
‘They’re not getting excited about the possibility of getting rich off tourism?’ she asked.
‘The younger ones, maybe. The older people don’t want to know.’
‘Oh.’
Manda’s fingers brushed against something on the floor. A bottle. Glass and, amazingly, intact. She opened it, hoping it was water. She sniffed, blinked. ‘I’ve found your hooch,’ she said. ‘The bottle wasn’t broken.’
‘Good. Take care of it.’ His voice came from above her. ‘We’re going to need it.’
She didn’t ask why, afraid that she already knew the answer.
CHAPTER SIX
J AGO’S foot slipped, dislodging more loose rubble that rattled down to the temple floor, eliciting a small, if quickly contained, cry of alarm from his companion.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked. The pause was a fraction too long. ‘Miranda!’
‘Y-yes…Sorry. I thought it was another aftershock.’ Then, ‘Can you see anything?’
By ‘anything’ she undoubtedly meant a way out.
‘Not a lot,’ he replied, relief driving his sarcasm.
He was prodding gently, hoping to find a way through, but having to be careful that he didn’t bring the rock ceiling down on top of them. As far as he could tell, however, the far end of the temple where his working supplies were stored was completely blocked off.
Their only escape route appeared to be up through the shaft, always assuming that it hadn’t collapsed. He couldn’t see the sky. And just for a moment he considered what it would have been like to come round, alone in the darkness, not knowing what had happened.
‘I could really do with that light,’ he said. Then, ‘Any chance in the near future, do you think?’ No reply. ‘Miranda?’
‘I’ve found my bag.’
She didn’t sound happy.
‘What’s up?’
‘Everything is soaking.’
‘You can’t expect me to get excited about a ruined bag, no matter how expensive.’
‘No. It’s just…The water bottle split when it fell.’
He just about managed to bite back the expletive that sprang to his lips. It was not good news. ‘If there’s anything left, drink it now,’ he instructed.
‘What about you?’
‘I’ll manage. Just tell me you’ve found the light.’
In the silence that followed, his mind filled in the blanks; a picture of her tilting her head back as she swallowed, the cool, clean water taking the dust from her mouth.
‘What about the damn light, Miranda?’ He demanded in an effort to take his mind off it.
In answer, a tiny glow appeared in the darkness.
A really tiny glow that did no more than light up the tips of ghostly pink fingers, shimmer off the pale curve of her cheek.
She’d said it was small, but he’d been hoping for one of those small but powerful mini-torches. The kind of sterling silver gizmo that came in expensive Christmas crackers. Women who carried designer bags that had a year-long waiting list didn’t buy cheap crackers for their Christmas parties. They bought the kind that contained expensive trinkets for people who had everything. At least they did back in the days when he had been on the guest list.
Maybe she’d gone for some kind of kitsch irony last Christmas because this light must have come out of the budget variety sold in supermarkets, just about powerful enough to illuminate a lock in the dark.
He fought down his disappointment and frustration. This was not her fault. Miranda Grenville had come out on a sightseeing trip, not equipped for a survival weekend.
‘Well, that’s great,’ he said, and hoped he sounded as if he meant it. ‘I thought it might have been ruined.’
He eased himself back down to the temple floor and carefully made his way across to her with the light as his guide.
‘Here,’ she said, handing it to him. It went out. ‘You have to squeeze the sides to make it work.’
‘Very high-tech,’ he observed, then wished he’d kept his mouth shut as she found his wrist, slid her fingers down to his hand and guided it to the bottle she was holding.
‘Here. I saved you some water. Careful, it’s on its side.’ Then, before he could take the drink that he was, admittedly, desperate for, she said, ‘Wait. I’ve got some painkillers in here somewhere. For the bump on your head.’
‘You don’t have faith in the kissing-it-better school of medicine?’ He asked, while she fumbled about in the dark for a pack of aspirin, popped a couple of pills from the plastic casing. It was extraordinary how, deprived of sight, the other senses became amplified. How, just by listening, he could tell exactly what she was doing.
‘Yes. No…’ Then, ‘No one ever kissed me better…’ she placed the pills into his hand, taking back the light so that he had both hands free to swallow them ‘…so I couldn’t say how effective it is. It’s probably wiser to be on the safe side and use the pill popping approach, wouldn’t you think?’
He tossed back the pills, swallowed a mouthful of water. ‘Never?’
‘My family didn’t go in for that kind of kissing.’
‘No?’ His were good at all that stuff. As far as the outside world was concerned, they had been the perfect happy family. ‘It’s all in the mind,’ he said. ‘An illusion. If you believe in it, it works.’
‘And do you?’ she asked. ‘Believe?’
‘If I say yes, will you kiss me again?’
‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’
&nb
sp; Jago wished he’d just said yes, but it was too late for that. ‘It got an eight out of ten on the feel-good factor.’
‘Only eight?’ she demanded.
‘You expected a straight ten?’ he asked, clearly amused.
In the darkness Manda blushed crimson. Whatever had she been thinking to get into this conversation? Attempting to recover a little self-respect, she said, ‘Hardly ten. But taking into account the guesswork involved, the dust, maybe eight point…’
But he didn’t wait for her to finish, instead laying his hand against her cheek, brushing his thumb against the edge of her mouth before leaning forward and kissing her back.
Jago’s lips were barely more than a breath against her own-a feather-light touch that breathed life, his own warmth into her. Nine point nine recurring…
While she was still trying to gather herself to say something, anything, he saved her from making a total fool of herself and saying that out loud.
‘You said you had a phone,’ he prompted casually. As if nothing had happened. ‘I don’t suppose, by any chance, it’s the kind that takes photographs?’
Nothing had happened, she reminded herself. He was just trying to keep her from thinking about the situation they were in and she responded with a positively flippant, ‘Don’t they all?’ Then, ‘Why? Do you want a souvenir? Pictures to sell to the tabloids.’
‘Would the tabloids be that interested?’
Pictures of Miranda Grenville, one-time society hostess, adviser to the Prime Minister, now businesswomen in her own right, filthy and dishevelled in an underground hell? Oh, yes, they’d love those. But clearly he hadn’t a clue who she was and she was happy to leave it that way.
‘There’s always a market for human interest stories,’ she told him as she dug the phone out of her bag, wiped it dry on the sleeve of her shirt and turned it on for the first time since she’d arrived in Cordillera. It lit up, then beeped. ‘I’ve got messages,’ she said.
‘They’ll keep,’ Jago replied, taking it from her. ‘This is more important. Shut your eyes.’
‘Why? What are you-’ A bright flash wiped out all the night sight she’d slowly built up. ‘Idiot!’
‘I told you to shut your eyes,’ He said, looking at the image on the screen for a moment before turning slightly. ‘And again,’ he said.
This time she didn’t hesitate as she caught on to what he was doing. With the camera in her cellphone he could take pictures, use them to ‘see’ exactly what the situation was, maybe find a way out. Or at least locate anything that might be of use to them.
He stared at the third image for so long that she leaned forward to see what held his attention.
‘What’s that?’ she asked, after a moment staring at the picture and trying to make sense of the vast piece of stone that was lying at a broken angle from the floor to the roof.
‘The eagle.’
‘The one that was part of the ceiling?’ she asked, shocked. To see something that huge just tossed aside was chilling.
‘I climbed up part of the way just now,’ Jago said. The screen lit up the tip of his finger, a short clean nail, as he pointed at the photograph. ‘There’s a shaft that leads directly out to the forest, but I couldn’t find a way through. It may be blocked with debris. Or the eagle might have fallen across it.’ ‘Oh.’
He took another photograph, and then another. It seemed forever before he grunted with something like satisfaction. ‘Keep it pointed that way so that I know how far I’ve got,’ he said, carefully handing her the phone. ‘I’ll be right back.’
She looked at the photograph, trying to work out what had got him so excited. Had he seen some prospect of escape? No matter how hard she stared, all she could see was a jumble of stone piled almost to the roof.
She heard him pulling at it, the rattle as smaller stones moved. ‘Be careful!’ Then, letting out a breath of relief as he made his way back to her, ‘What was it? What did you see?’
‘The handle of a trowel,’ he said, passing it to her. It was one of those fine trowels that archaeologists used to scrape away the layers of soil. Pitifully small, but better than nothing. ‘Put it in your bag. Did you put the brandy in there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Put the strap over your head so you don’t get parted from it again. There are bound to be more aftershocks.’
He used the same take it or leave it tone with which he’d told her to close her eyes and her first reaction to any kind of order had always been to ignore it. This time, however, she didn’t hesitate, putting the trowel in her bag, placing the strap over her head.
And she didn’t speak again until he’d painstakingly photographed all three hundred and sixty degrees of what remained of the temple. Kept her bottom lip firmly clamped between her teeth, containing her impatience as he carefully examined each image, instead fixing her gaze on the dark angles and planes of his face in the shadowy light from the small screen. Watching for the slightest sign that he’d found some way out.
Without a word he stopped looking, then turned his attention to the roof and carried on taking photographs.
She did her best to smother a pathetic whimper but he must have heard her because, without pausing in what he was doing, he reached out, found her hand in the faint light from the screen.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.
‘Well?’ she asked, unable to contain herself when, finally, he stopped, looked through all the images and still said nothing.
‘Is this you?’ he asked.
‘What?’
She leaned forward and realised that he’d found the pictures taken at the christening. She’d taken a picture of Belle holding Minette.
‘No. That’s my sister-in-law. I was godmother to her baby last week.’
‘Why do I think I know her?’
‘I couldn’t say,’ she replied, unwilling to add glamour to her sister-in-law by telling him that, until recently, she had been the nation’s breakfast television sweetheart. ‘Maybe you’ve a thing for voluptuous women?’
‘If I have, believe me I’m over it. What about this?’ he asked, flipping on to the next picture.
‘That’s Daisy. She’s my assistant. My sister-in-law’s sister. It was a joint christening and I was godmother to her little boy too.’
‘So where’s number three?’
‘Three?’
‘Doesn’t everything come in threes? Wishes? Disasters? Babies…’
‘Not in this family,’ she said sharply.
‘That would be the family you’re taking a break from?’
Had she really said that? To this total stranger. Except that when a man had kissed you-twice-he could hardly be described as a stranger. Even when you didn’t know what he looked like. Anything about him. Except that he knew when to be tough and when to be gentle. And when a girl needed a hand to hold in the dark.
Maybe that was enough.
‘The same family whose photographs you carry about with you?’
‘It’s…complicated.’
‘Families usually are,’ he said with feeling.
‘What about you? Will your family be glued to the twenty-four hour news channels? Or flying out to help in the search?’
‘It’s unlikely. They have no idea I’m in Cordillera.’
‘Really? I assumed you’d been here for quite a while.’
‘Nearly five years.’
‘Oh.’
‘We’re not what you could call close.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s my choice.’
‘Right.’ Then, ‘Mine don’t know, either. Where I am.’
‘You said.’
She had said rather a lot for such a short acquaintance, but then the circumstances had an intensity that speeded up the normal course of social intercourse.
‘Of course I’ve only been gone a few days,’ she added, feeling guilty.
‘I’m sure you’d have got around to sending a postcard eventually.
’
‘I don’t send postcards.’
‘Or call? They seem to have been calling you.’
‘Those messages? Probably business,’ she said dismissively. ‘Belle and Daisy and I have a television production company. We’re due to start work on a new documentary soon.’
‘Oh, well, the good news is that we needn’t worry about them worrying about us.’
That was the good news?
‘Okay, Miranda Grenville. We seem to have just two options. I may have found a way through the roof. The first part of the climb would be fairly easy. Up the back of the eagle where it’s sloping to the ground. But after that it’s going to be a tough climb, finding footholds in the dark. See?’
He showed her the picture of a dark gash in the roof where the light hadn’t reflected back, suggesting space.
‘Unfortunately I can’t say what we’ll find when we get there. We might still be-’
‘What’s the alternative?’ she asked.
‘We could try and clear this corner.’ He flipped forward to a photograph that showed a corner where the wall had subsided. ‘The ground falls away there, so it’s unlikely to be blocked with debris once we’re through.’
‘If we can get through,’ she said.
‘If we can get through,’ he confirmed. ‘The third option is to stay put and hope that the sniffer dogs are on their way.’
‘I don’t think I’ll hold my breath on that one.’ Manda did her best to swallow down the fear. ‘I imagine they already have their paws full.’ She tried not to think about what was going on outside. The suffering…‘Which would you choose? If you didn’t have to think about me?’
There was a telling pause before he said, ‘I think clearing the corner might be the most sensible option.’
He was lying.
‘If you were on your own you’d go for the climb. Admit it.’
He hesitated a fraction too long before saying, ‘In the dark it could be suicide.’
‘You think I’m not up to it, is that it?’
‘I’ve no idea what you’re up to, but it’s not that. If there’s a shock while we’re up there-’
‘Shut up, Jago.’
‘Miranda…’