Artifact (A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery)

by Pandian, Gigi

  “Don’t go,” he mumbled, before falling into a restless sleep.

  I sat on the other bed for what seemed like hours. I had my headphones with me in my messenger bag, so I listened to music as I scribbled notes on the hotel stationery about who could possibly have killed Knox and left Rupert in such bad shape. I think the bhangra beats I was listening to must have been overly complex, because I ended up with two lists. One that included everyone at the inn as a suspect, and one that excluded everyone because it didn’t seem possible for them to have done it. I wadded up the sheets of paper and quietly left the room to get some food. I returned a short time later with some new clothes, including a new pair of heels, fish and chips, and refreshment.

  The scent of the fried fish and pungent condiments woke Rupert, but only long enough for him to eat a piece of fish and wash it down with a lager I’d picked up at the off-license down the street along with a bottle of Macallan whisky for me. I was momentarily worried that I shouldn’t have given alcohol to someone with an injury, but then I remembered that bit of advice concerned head injuries rather than infections. The alcohol would probably do him good.

  I turned on the television at a low volume and flipped among the five channels of reception while drinking the whisky before I fell asleep to news about the dental crisis in Scotland.

  I woke to the smell of kippers under my nose. I’m told that most non-Brits can’t stand the smoked fish that’s saltier than anchovies, especially as a breakfast food. I love it. It took me a moment to remember where I was, before sitting up in my clothes from the day before to find the room full of daylight and Rupert standing next to me. He looked somewhat better than he had the night before. His eyes were no longer as sunken and dark, and his smile approximated a hearty one.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  “Always.” I looked across the room. “Room service?”

  “You really do sleep through everything, love.”

  For a few moments I could almost imagine life was back to normal. The familiar smells and the familiar sight of the man in front of me brought me back to a time when life made sense. The illusion quickly faded as I looked at Rupert’s sickly pallor. He and Knox would never again be able to go on a crazy adventure together.

  “Where’s Lane?” I asked.

  “He didn’t come back.”

  “You checked the other room?” I asked.

  He nodded. “He probably stayed over at his friend’s house in Aberdeen,” he said, taking a bite of eggs from the tray. His eyes watched me intently.

  I forced myself to speak. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  After eating far too many kippers, I took a long shower and got dressed in my new clothes. Lane still wasn’t there when I came back into the room.

  As I stood at the window, looking out at a view of a cobblestone alley, Rupert came up beside me.

  “It’ll be okay,” he said.

  “You used to be a better liar.”

  “Right now I feel like I used to be better at a lot of things.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “What the bloody hell has happened to our lives?” he said. He held me tightly with his good arm around my waist, but didn’t attempt to do more than that. That made it all the more difficult to push him away.

  Chapter 47

  I was desperate for a decent cup of coffee, and probably even more desperate to do something other than sit helplessly in that hotel room. I left the hotel and walked down the narrow street, with cars somehow managing to whiz by in two directions. I found a coffee house almost immediately, but took my time sipping the strong coffee before heading back to the hotel.

  “See, she’s fine,” Rupert was saying as I opened the door.

  Lane stood a few feet away from Rupert, his appearance showing no signs of whatever disguise he had assumed. He had fixed his thick black glasses and was wearing them again. A small locked bag lay at his feet.

  “What did you learn?” I asked.

  “Malcolm is back,” Lane said. “And he isn’t happy that some joker is wreaking havoc on his dig. They’re all there, so that isn’t going to help us narrow things down.”

  “That’s a really insightful friend you’ve got there, Lane,” said Rupert.

  “Both Jaya and I are under suspicion,” Lane said. “Mostly Jaya. Her blood-stained coat, and a note from Jaya the police found in Knox’s pocket.”

  “Bloody hell,” Rupert mumbled, sitting down on the edge of his bed.

  “The police aren’t watching the dig around the clock,” Lane said. “They don’t have that kind of manpower to spare, since they’re not positive what’s going on. All of the people on the dig have been instructed not to leave. Mr. and Mrs. Black were asked not to take any unexpected trips as well, which they found rather amusing.”

  “That’s great,” Rupert said. “We’re in exactly the same place as we were yesterday. If only we all had such helpful friends we’d be out of this in no time.”

  Lane looked ready to throttle Rupert. My turn to intervene.

  “We needed that information,” I said, “but now we need to figure out who is behind everything. Lane is right. I’d rather not be figuring out the bad guy from a jail cell. Or wait until something happens to another one of us. I’d rather figure out who is the homicidal maniac.”

  “Your language has become a bit overwrought in your old age, Jaya,” Rupert commented.

  “Damn it, Rupert. When are you going to realize life is not a game?”

  “When are you going to grow up and realize that perhaps it is?”

  Rupert and I glared at each other.

  “Let’s make a list,” Lane suggested.

  “I already tried it,” I said. “Last night. After you left and Rupert fell asleep. I thought it might help. But it doesn’t. Don’t make me fish it out of the trash.”

  “It’s really not such a bad idea,” Lane insisted.

  “He’s right,” Rupert said.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll summarize.”

  They both looked at me imploringly. I got up and fished the crumpled pages out of the trash.

  “We can rule out Knox,” I said, “for obvious reasons. Next there’s Professor of Scottish archaeology Malcolm Alpin, who, if we are to believe Rupert’s statement, we can also rule out. It’s too bad, since it really was such a good theory.”

  They agreed we had to rule him out, though Lane only admitted it grudgingly, eyeing Rupert.

  “No one else has an alibi that we know of,” I said, “so let’s go through motives. Fiona Murdoch, who has never been known for her good judgment and is taking a hell of a long time to complete her dissertation—though I’ll agree she’s on a better path than Knox took—was the instigator of this whole mess when she told Knox about the ruby. She could have finally gotten fed up with Knox and with you, Rupert, but why not leave you out of the whole thing if that was her intent? It seems easier not to put yourself in a position where you’re going to need to kill someone. Leaving us with her motive, which makes no sense.

  “Moving on to Derwin McVicar, the pompous graduate student of archaeology—”

  “You’re in Britain, love,” Rupert cut in. “So the proper terminology is post-graduate student.”

  “Two to one non-Brits in the room, so the proper terminology is simply ‘graduate’,” I countered. “Getting back to the point, Derwin is a pretentious man who is too busy kissing up to the professor to do much else besides write methodical notes. He certainly wouldn’t be distracted by an Indian treasure. Anyone disagree? No?

  “Moving on to the others who aren’t a part of the dig, Mr. and Mrs. Black have full run of the inn since it’s their establishment, so they could have found out what you were up to, Rupert, but why would they care? They seem quite content running their little inn.

  “Lastly, Fergus and Angus. They’re a bit eccentric, and they thought you should be digging for fairy treasure rather than Pictish history, so I grant that they’re a bit of a w
ild card, but I still don’t see them bumping off members of the crew one by one to prevent the dig from moving forward. If the purpose was to stop the dig, there are easier ways and, at the very least, better people to target.”

  Silence followed my exhaustive list.

  “You’re not thinking badly enough of people, Jaya,” Lane said finally. “How do we know the Blacks don’t have more motive than you think? What if one of them secretly wants to run off to a Caribbean island if only they had the money?”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense,” I insisted. “We can’t go inventing motives we don’t know exist. That won’t get us anywhere. By that logic, anyone could develop a greedy streak.”

  “All right,” Rupert said. “Brainstorming, then. I say…Derwin McVicar did it. With a name like that, he’s got to be messed up in the head. Traumatized since childhood and all that.”

  I stared angrily at Rupert. I saw Lane looking intently in his direction as well.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Lane said slowly.

  It was Rupert’s turn to look incredulously at Lane. “I was joking, old boy,” he said.

  “No, no,” Lane said, shaking his head. “But his name. Derwin McVicar. It’s far too good to be true, isn’t it?”

  Rupert and I stared at him.

  “I mean that it could be an alias,” Lane said. “Did anybody know Derwin before he came to the dig?”

  Rupert and I were silent for a moment.

  “I think he worked with Professor Alpin before coming here,” Rupert said.

  “It was a recent connection,” Lane said, “not long before he found some research that got him to the dig.”

  “But nobody knew about the treasure until Knox found the bracelet,” I added.

  “How do we know that?” Lane said simply. “For all we know, it could have been Derwin who dropped the bracelet when he found the treasure.”

  “The bracelet wasn’t dropped recently,” Rupert said. “Knox wasn’t daft. He could tell the difference.”

  “I think my head may explode,” I said, throwing myself down onto one of the beds.

  “Then what do you propose?”

  I looked up to find them both looking at me expectantly. Rupert’s chest moved up and down with effort. Although he would never say it, it was clear how labored his breathing had become.

  We needed to get Rupert to a doctor soon. He’d never go willingly until this was settled.

  We didn’t have much time.

  “It’s your turn to act,” I said to Rupert. “These speculations are getting us nowhere. Your ‘amnesia’ has come to an end. You’re going to appear at the pub and flush out the killer.”

  Chapter 48

  The storm that had been teasing us with cold winds finally broke that night. I sat alone in the car as the rain beat down on the windows.

  One of the items in Lane’s new bag had been a warmer coat for me, much more appropriate for the Scottish weather than anything I had brought for the summertime trip. I was still chilled, but at least my teeth weren’t chattering.

  Since Lane and I were wanted by the police, Rupert was the only one who could safely reveal himself at the inn. Even more importantly, someone in that inn thought they had killed Rupert, so they should have some sort of reaction when they saw him alive.

  Lane didn’t trust Rupert at all, so he wanted to be there, too. I didn’t trust Rupert’s health, so I agreed Lane should be there to help Rupert with the murderer.

  We couldn’t tell this to Rupert, of course, so Lane made up an excuse to go off with his friend in Aberdeen to get some more help, when in truth he would be applying his disguise and appearing back at the inn as a traveler at the same time Rupert went to the inn.

  I was waiting in the car a short distance away. It had been close to an hour. What was taking so long?

  We decided the best time to go would be around dinner, so everyone would be gathered together. But that time was long past now. Where were they?

  I was almost fed up enough to walk over to the inn myself, taking whatever consequences came with that decision, when I heard a noise. It wasn’t the storm. It was a branch breaking under a foot. I jerked my head around, unsure of which direction the noise had come from. It was impossible to see anything through the storm.

  The passenger-side door yanked open. Before I could move, a man lunged into the car and pulled the door shut.

  The unfamiliar, dark features came close to my face as he grabbed me and wrapped his hands around my arms. The grip was tight. I shifted my lower body and lifted up my left foot to bring it down on that of the attacker. Before I struck, I realized I knew the touch of those long fingers.

  “Where is he?” a familiar voice asked frantically. “And why wasn’t your door locked? There’s a murderer on the loose, you know.”

  I looked into his face and didn’t recognize Lane except for his touch and the sound of his undisguised voice. It was especially dark that night with the rain falling steadily, but I could see the outline of his features, and it didn’t seem possible that this was the shape of his face. Even the scent of his breath was different.

  “What do you mean where is he?” I asked, in shock.

  “Your ex,” Lane said.

  “Rupert’s at the inn. Why aren’t you?”

  “No, he’s not. That’s where I’ve been. He never came inside.”

  “That can’t be.”

  Lane swore.

  “Where did you leave him?” he asked. “And when?”

  “Almost an hour ago, right here. I saw him walking toward the inn.”

  “But not going inside?”

  “I closed the car door before he got all the way there. The rain was coming down sideways.”

  Lane ran his fingers through his wet—now brown and frightfully curly—hair, and I got a better look at his face. It was rounder, less angular, than the face I knew. And his eyebrows…they were bushier. In place of his usual glasses he wore circular wire-rimmed spectacles. He noticed me staring.

  “Later,” he said.

  I looked away from his face so I could focus on the matter at hand. My gaze wandered to his midsection, which was somehow different as well.

  “I don’t know how anyone could have gotten him,” I said.

  “That’s what worries me. I think he couldn’t face them. He ran.”

  A fist banged on the window next to Lane. He covered my mouth with his hand before I could make a sound.

  The knock came again.

  Lane motioned for me to stay quiet, then rolled down the window of the car.

  “All right?” said a Scottish voice coming from Lane’s mouth. “Right fierce storm.”

  “Ye’ve no need to pretend to me,” Angus said.

  “Surely I don’t know what ye—”

  “Ach,” Angus said. “There’s no time for that, man! I mean ye no harm. Somethin’ is amiss.” He pulled open the door behind Lane.

  “Wot are ye—” Scottish Lane asked.

  “Ach,” Angus said again, slipping into the back seat “The others cannae see. No one looks, do they? It’s in the eyes.”

  I wondered if it was the first time Lane had ever been found out. And by an eccentric old man, no less.

  “Evenin’, Miss Jones,” Angus said, leaning over the seat to see me. A flash of lightning lit up the sky, illuminating his grave face.

  “What’s wrong, Angus?” I asked. A clap of thunder sounded, and the rain beat down against the car more furiously.

  “Is nae right.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked. I almost had to yell to be heard over the torrent.

  “Didnae yer gentleman notice when he was in the pub?”

  “I wasn’t sure if it was only my imagination,” Lane said. “I was most concerned about watching out for your ex through the front door.”

  “Wait, Angus, did Rupert go inside?” I asked.

  “Rupert?” Angus repeated, pausing from adjusting his rain-soaked coat collar. “Th
e young man who went ‘n crashed his car?”

  “The crash injured him,” I said. “But didn’t kill him.”

  “Aye,” Angus said slowly, comprehension dawning on him. “No, I havnae seen the boy.”

  “You’re talking about how tense the mood was?” Lane said. “I felt it, too. Malcolm and Derwin didn’t seem to pay attention to anyone else, huddled over some charts to figure out how to remove their stone.”

  “Their obsession,” Angus said, shaking his head. “When a man is dead, and the two of them is still there calmly talkin’ on and on about gettin’ at their Pictish stones in the ground. Is nae right. Is nae right at all.”

  I stared at Angus.

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “Wot did I say?” Angus asked, startled, looking over at Lane.

  “You said the two of them,” I said, answering my own question. “Their obsession, not his obsession.”

  “Aye,” said Angus.

  “Jaya,” Lane said, “we don’t have time to stand around debating theories with Angus right now. It’s more important that we find your ex.” He turned to Angus. “He was with us tonight, but he’s missing. And I don’t think he ran off. I think I know where he went.”

  “I’m not wasting time theorizing,” I said. “We were right about the motive, but not the person. Derwin is just as obsessed. He’s the one who was spying on people who weren’t where they were supposed to be on the dig. The blinding lights we saw. It was his binoculars. He’s been watching us. And remember he was so concerned about sealing off the cave? That wasn’t so he could prevent someone else finding a treasure he wanted for himself. He was worried the dig wouldn’t be stable if someone was digging in the cave underneath it. Derwin killed Knox and tried to kill Rupert to protect the dig.”

  “Wot are ye sittin’ here fer?” Angus said. “Yer friend is in danger. Stay here, Miss Jones. We’ll be back.”

  I was too startled to disobey. The sound of the rain filled my ears as they opened the door and jumped out, slamming it behind them. This time I remembered to lock the door.