by P. R. Black
‘The last shot,’ Seth said. ‘Sheesh. This is poignant.’ He reached for the arrows.
Vonny felt a plummeting sensation in her guts; her skin tingled on her neck in a current of foreboding. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t touch those.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Seth said. ‘Not going superstitious on me, are you?’
He took out the darts, and moved back towards the window side of the shed. ‘OK. What do I forfeit if I fail to hit… eighty or more with these three darts?’
‘Fame and fortune,’ Susie said, on the double.
‘Fame and fortune it is,’ Seth grinned.
‘Don’t say that,’ Vonny said.
Seth ignored her. ‘Here we go… the very best of order, ladies and gentlemen. Best of order. Here we go. Drum roll…’
He threw the arrow – it thudded straight into the centre bed of the upper section of the twenty segment.
‘Look at that! Still got it, love. Sixty to score. A tall order. Can he do it?’
The second dart landed less than half an inch away from the first dart, its flight tickling that of its predecessor.
‘Another twenty! Forty scored… Can he score another forty to take the prize?’
Seth waited. Vonny held her breath, despite herself. Ludicrous, she thought.
He released the last dart. It missed the board, handily, piercing the tyre well ahead of the board.
‘Ah, dammit. There goes fame and fortune. I was aiming for the double top. That could have put us over the top. Eighty was a bit of an ask on three arrows, all the same.’
‘Silly,’ Vonny said. ‘Tempting fate like that.’
‘It doesn’t matter – fame and fortune is in the bag,’ Seth said, reaching for the arrows. ‘Thanks to our newspaper coverage. Am I right, Susie?’
‘Fame, the length and breadth of Brenwood, I would say, and anyone else who’s part of our circulation.’
‘There you go. Nothing to worry about.’ Seth tugged at the dart stuck in the galvanised rubber frame.
As he did so, there was a click, and the board swung out.
‘Whoa,’ he said, taking a step back.
‘What is that?’ Vonny asked. ‘A safe, or something?’
‘Nah… Just a recess, set back in the wall, but there is something there.’ His bulk blocked out the sight of what was behind the dartboard for a moment. Vonny crowded in to see.
There, in the light of Seth’s phone, was a folded scrap of paper, inside a flimsy plastic wallet – the kind of material Vonny would have used to hand in an essay. ‘This is intriguing, wouldn’t you say?’ Seth lifted the sheath out and emptied the paper into his hand.
It was an A4 sheet of printer refill, folded over twice. Carefully, he straightened it out.
The light of the two phones flooded the square of paper. Squinting, Vonny began to discern what was there.
Susie called it first. ‘It’s a bloody map!’
9
Vonny took it from Seth and held it back from the light. Susie was close enough for her breath to tickle the nape of her neck.
‘What’s it of?’ the younger woman asked.
‘I think this is the back wall,’ Vonny said. ‘Look at the trees; that X is where we are, in relation to the house. It must be. According to the key, the drystone wall is to the south. That looks right.’
Vonny’s purple-painted fingernail lightly traced a path along the paper. The surface had a slight texture to it, but was still sturdy enough; whoever had folded it had done so carefully, with a good eye for symmetry, which pleased Vonny instinctively. The map itself was drawn in what could have been black magic marker, or more likely a felt-tip pen. The lines were chunky, but the detail was clear.
‘There’s the old stables,’ Seth said. ‘And the house… that’s where our house is, now.’
Vonny pointed to another X. ‘And that’s pointing to something in the middle of the woods.’
All three considered the paper a second. Seth clapped his hands, making Vonny and Susie jump.
‘Well then,’ Seth said to her. ‘We don’t have anywhere we need to be right now, do we, darlin?’’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, we’re going on a treasure hunt.’
‘But it’ll be hard to pinpoint. I don’t think the map’s exactly to scale…’ Vonny turned to the map to read some writing, along the outer edge, on the map’s west side, a couple of lines of ballpoint in a neat hand. ‘Hang on, it says something here. “Mark – go to the delta, stand north, take the bearing. Go straight on till the rough.”’
‘It’s a treasure hunt,’ Susie said. ‘My God – this could be anything! What if it was actually money or something?’
‘Who’s Mark – do we know any Marks?’ Seth asked.
Vonny shook her head. ‘The guy who owned this place was called Dan Grainger. Unless that means anything to you?’ She turned to Susie.
Susie shook her head. ‘Never heard of him. Sorry. Like I said, I only just got here a few weeks ago – I hardly know anyone. Just my landlady and my boss. And I wouldn’t call either of them my friends. That’s it.’
‘There’s no sense of distance. And he says something about a bearing.’ Seth sighed. ‘We need to sort that out, before we go anywhere. Otherwise we’ve just got a vague idea of where “X” might be.’
‘Well, he said delta,’ Vonny said. ‘That’s where a river meets a lake, if I remember my geography. There’s a stream running through this estate. And it pools into a lake, which drains through to the farmer’s field.’
‘Not marked on the map,’ Seth said.
‘No – but it’s on the deeds. Which I’ve got downloaded on my phone.’ Vonny soon found the document, then increased the magnification to pick out a blue thread running across the property. ‘So, if our map’s talking about a delta, then it’s… here, I’d say. Where it drains into the pond.’
‘Getting warmer,’ Seth said, clicking his fingers. ‘I can sense it. What about the bearings?’
‘That… I’m not sure about.’ She studied the paper, but there was no other clue on it. She even held it close to the light, to see if there was anything marked there – perhaps an invisible ink trick, that she’d read about in Nancy Drew mysteries as a girl. ‘Is there anything behind the dartboard? Anything at all?’
Seth went in for a closer look. ‘Nah. It’s all clear. And there was nothing written on the board, was there?’
‘There was something on the board,’ Susie said. ‘The darts. What was the score?’
Vonny brightened. ‘I can’t remember – but you said you were recording this, weren’t you? It’ll be on your phone.’
Susie stopped the recording, played it from the start, then scrolled through until the jerky stop-motion-animated Vonny and Seth entered the shed in the woods.
‘There,’ Vonny said. ‘That part in the middle – that’s twenty-five, right? And the next one… I can’t make that out.’
‘Double fifteen – I remember now,’ Seth said. ‘Thirty. So that’s fifty-five scored – the last dart was outside the wire.’
‘So we’ve got fifty-five – or fifty-five degrees,’ Vonny said. ‘So we go to the delta, stand north, turn fifty-five degrees, then, what was it? “Go on until the rough.”’
‘Could be a wild goose chase. And it’s probably nothing.’ Seth sighed – then smiled. ‘What are we waiting for?’
10
‘It’s exciting, though. I mean, a proper story.’ Susie kept pace with Vonny and Seth as they passed through the trees to the main path bisecting the land. Although it hadn’t been maintained so far as Vonny knew, the path was clear enough through a fallow field where pumpkins had once grown. On the other side, the stark treeline.
‘Yeah… Hey, you aren’t still filming, are you?’ Seth asked.
‘Not at the moment,’ Susie said.
‘Did you manage to capture the footage of me, you know… stepping into the unknown?’
‘You mean when you got ta
ngled up with the jacket? I don’t really know. I’ll have to check.’ The girl had form, Vonny had to admit; she said it without so much as a blush.
‘Hm. Yeah. Just in case it gets uploaded, to… you know, your website.’
‘Might get hits,’ Vonny mused. ‘Might get millions of them.’
Seth brightened. ‘Viral. Yeah, you could be right!’
The path ended in a copse, with trees on either side of an unobtrusive wire fence, tightly meshed in silver squares. A slight decline running perpendicular to the path cut underneath it through a pipe, giving way to a narrow stream. This place was overgrown, a tangle of ancient trees, moss and lichen-spotted branches and other detritus that formed a natural dam – one part of which included an ancient car tyre.
Vonny checked her map. ‘Beyond this, there’s the pond – it’s marked as a “lake”, here, incidentally, no name attached – so where this part meets is the delta.’
Seth wiped sweat from his brow. ‘How do we get to it from here?’
Vonny stepped over the fence and dropped on the other side. Water ran not twelve inches from where she stood, at the top of the decline. ‘This is the only path. I hope these new boots of yours are insured, dear.’
The branches closed in on them as they travelled, and the startled flight of an unseen bird almost prompted the same reaction in Seth.
‘Let’s take a moment,’ he said. ‘What if we’re about to discover, I don’t know… bodies or something?’
‘Not scared, are you?’ Vonny asked. ‘You were Mr action and adventure not so long ago.’
Though as she said this, her heart had begun to kick, a noticeable prod in the chest from a very insistent doubt in her head. This was no good. She had known it from the moment they came across the shed in the woods with its ragged crown, like a giant spider poised to spring at them. She did not like this. Bizarrely, she pined for the security of the caravan, for all its close confines and awkward sanitation.
‘Just saying. Whoever left the map meant to keep something hidden. So either it’s something really valuable, or something… he really doesn’t want anyone to find.’
‘You’re assuming it’s a he,’ Susie said. ‘And I don’t think there’s anything dangerous or suspect, here. Why would you leave a map leading to it?’
‘It was addressed to Mark. Someone was meant to find it. I think Susie’s right.’ Vonny felt only slightly relieved, though. It might have been valuable, but it still felt like bad news.
Bad news that Susie would doubtlessly put in her feature. It had all been Seth’s idea – a great advert for Vonny’s skills. Media strategy, he’d said, tapping his forehead. Gotta have one, or you’re sunk. Admittedly, the Brenwood Green Advertiser and Chronicle wasn’t quite Good Housekeeping or the Sunday Times supplement, but viral things had to start somewhere. Or so Seth had said. Besides, it would be practice for the real thing.
Soon they reached a part where the treeline thinned out, giving way to a clearing marked by a circular pond, maybe forty or fifty feet in diameter. ‘Lake’ didn’t feel like too grandiose a term; in spite of the churned earth and winter-dark dead weed bed hemming the pond in, it was a gorgeous spot. At the far side of the water, a drainpipe allowed the water to escape and continue along the water table as the stream progressed towards the woods beyond. The water had caught the grey afternoon winter light beautifully, reflecting the sky and the fine brushstrokes of cloud in a glassy, perfectly still surface.
‘Whoa,’ Susie said, as she took multiple shots of the scene. ‘Did you know this was here?’
‘Didn’t get a chance to check it out,’ Vonny said. ‘I didn’t realise the dimensions.’
‘It’s like your own secret lake!’
‘Could go fishing,’ Seth mused. ‘Looks the job for some fishing. Might dig out my old fishing rod.’
‘The delta must be about here, where the stream flows into the pond… or the lake.’ Vonny used the compass programme on a stargazing app she didn’t consult as much as she’d have liked to. ‘So… I think, if we stand here, that’s in the direction we’ve been told. Then we take a bearing…’ She fiddled with the digital compass, tutting a couple of times in irritation before turning clockwise, biting her lip in concentration. ‘And here we go – it’s pointing us at the other side, where the trees are thickest.’
‘So we go around the drink?’ Seth had already began to move, but Vonny stopped him.
‘Nope… we can ford the stream, here. You’ll get wet socks at best. I don’t want to lose the bearing.’
Grumbling, Seth followed as the two women splashed through the trickling water. Vonny shrieked, annoyed that her socks were wet after choosing the deepest part of the stream. Soon they came to the trees – a thick nightmare of seemingly uniform pine. The scent of the trees was gorgeous, but this part of the estate was all too quiet, and all too dark, with the tall, ancient sentinels standing guard before them.
‘We push on. This is the place. Or… we could stop and head back for a cup of tea, maybe come back another time?’
‘Nah. We’ve come too far, don’t you think?’ Seth grinned. ‘This is a big adventure, now. Let’s see it through.’
‘No, we absolutely have to move on,’ Susie said, determinedly. ‘This could be the front-page scoop. You’ll be the toast of Brenwood if it’s treasure or… or something else.’
The latter suggestion seemed to linger in the air as they pushed on through the trees.
It didn’t take long for them to spot it.
‘That has to be it,’ Seth said. ‘Look… is that tarpaulin?’
It was. Perhaps grey in its salad days, the material was the same eerie green as the forest in the filtered light. It was stretched tight over something, perhaps shoulder height on Vonny.
‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’ Seth said, grinning. He started forward.
‘No… Hold on, I don’t think that’s the greatest idea…’
‘It’s tied down… Hang on, there.’ Seth pulled out a pocket knife – he’d surely bought that during his adventure in the village shop – and cut some rope, which was fastened at intervals around the covering. Susie gave him a hand to pull the twine away.
Then he urged them to stand back. ‘Camera out for this. This could be the big moment, right here. You ready? Three… two… one!’
It wasn’t quite the big reveal he’d planned on – the tarpaulin took an age to slither off the surface of what it concealed. But the effect was stunning, all the same, even for being in slow motion.
‘Good God almighty,’ Seth yelled. ‘Would you take a look at that!’
11
It was a car – boxy, sporty and bright yellow. It was a shell-burst in the dull afternoon, its flames licking every shade and tone surrounding it. The car was a coupe, clearly at least forty years old, and upon inspection suffering from patches of rust along the edges of the nuclear paintwork. Two fixed wing mirrors, backed with silver, were only slightly tarnished with grime. The headlights were small, giving the appearance of someone squinting over a pair of spectacles. That was the only grandmotherly quality that could be attached to it. It had a long bonnet and a brawny quality that hinted at some power.
‘It’s an old Datsun Cherry,’ Seth said. He trailed his fingers over the bodywork. ‘And hey… what’s the odds we’ve got the key for it, here?’ He groped in his pocket for the keys that he had taken from the hanging coat in the shed.
‘Wait a second.’ Vonny held up a hand. ‘Just hold on a minute, here. Let’s talk about this. Susie, could you stop filming or taking pictures, or whatever it is you’re doing, for a minute or two?’
Susie lowered her smartphone, pressing a key. ‘OK, done,’ she said, a touch sulkily.
‘I think this has gone on far enough, Seth,’ Vonny said.
‘What do you mean? Don’t you want to check this out?’
‘No, not really. We should probably call the police, first. Let them handle it, and ask the questions, and find out who this
belonged to. It’s not for us.’
‘It is for us, though,’ Seth said, ‘because we found it on our land. And this is our land – signed, sealed, and sorted.’
‘I don’t really care. I reckon we should leave this entire thing, and wait for someone else to check it out. I don’t like it, Seth.’
He turned to Susie. ‘Tell me, does this car being found on our property make the story less, or more interesting.’
‘More, definitely.’ Susie had already abandoned Vonny’s request, and was taking pictures of the car from every angle. ‘Look… those tyres look kind of fresh. Wonder if it’ll start?’
‘Wonder no more.’ Seth dangled the key. Then he slid it into the lock on the driver’s side.
The door clicked open.
‘There’s a reason I’m asking you to stop,’ Vonny said. ‘It’s because things can be hidden in cars.’
‘What we saying? Bodies?’ Seth grinned, and opened the door. Inside, the leather was mouldy, a fine, grey covering coating the seating like a dusting of cigarette ash. There wasn’t much to the bodywork, and no sign of a radio inside either. The head of the gearstick was broken off, leaving a curiously disturbing chrome-plated spear point.
‘Don’t think I’ll take a seat. Nothing inside, bar some kind of fungus. Could be the key to curing cancer or something. You never know.’ Nonetheless, Seth reached in and pulled open the glove compartment. ‘No documents, nothing.’ He craned his neck inside, nostrils twitching. ‘Nothing under the seats, that I can see… Smells funny, though. We got plenty of bleach back at the caravan, Von?’
‘Best to leave it as it is. Maybe we can get some kind of vintage car dealer to check it?’
‘Could do. It isn’t in bad shape, all told – should be rustier than it is. It might have been well used, before it was dumped.’ He slid the key into the ignition. ‘Dare me?’ he said, cocking an eyebrow.
‘I do not dare you. Seth, please, just leave it…’
Before she could finish the sentence, he had turned the key. There was a dry click, like a nervous man clearing his throat, and nothing. ‘Aw shucks. I had to. You know that.’