The day wore on and everyone stuck to their corners. The train pulled into a number of stations. Occasionally, Ruby and Alisha left their nest to venture out into the heat to stretch their legs. But mostly they remained huddled together talking. Sam alternated between his bunk and pacing the length of the carriage. Gerald spent most of the time lying on the pile of cushions, sketching. All the drawings were of Sam in various medieval torture devices. Lunch was the leftovers from breakfast. No one was hungry.
The train rattled across endless fields, grey and muddy under the downpours that continued throughout the day. Tiny farms, little more than patches of tilled earth and a few stone buildings, flashed past. Every so often, a lightning strike and clap of thunder would puncture the boredom. By the time night fell, the tension in the carriage had reached toxic levels.
Ruby finally spoke. ‘Twelve hours to go.’ She paused. ‘I’m bored. Come on Alisha, let’s go exploring.’ She and Alisha went to the end of the carriage and through a door that linked them to the rest of the train.
Sam and Gerald were alone.
The silence lay over them like a scratchy blanket.
Gerald glanced across at his friend. ‘You hungry?’ he asked.
Sam grunted. ‘Not really.’
There was an awkward moment. ‘This bandit girl,’ Sam began. ‘Good kisser?’
‘I was fighting for my life,’ Gerald said.
‘Fighting for breath, more like.’
Gerald stood up. ‘You don’t have to be here, you know!’ he shouted. ‘You can leave any time you want.’
Sam leapt out of his bunk and flung himself to be nose-to-nose with Gerald.
‘Sounds good to me!’ he said. ‘But right now I’m stuck on a train. And I don’t have access to my personal helicopter to take me to my nearest palace.’
‘Is that what this is about?’ Gerald said. ‘You’re jealous?’
Sam pressed his lips together. Then looked away.
That was the end of it for Gerald. He’d had enough of Sam and his whingeing.
He picked up his backpack and stormed out of the chairman’s carriage, straight into the stifling fug of an airless alcove. He gagged at the sudden change in atmosphere but continued on. He grabbed the handle of another door and pushed hard, exposing a narrow corridor to a sleeper carriage. Bunks were stacked up three high on either side. There were bodies and limbs everywhere. Men, women, children, babies—lying, sitting, standing, lounging, talking, coughing, eating, laughing, praying, singing, crying. It was a compressed sausage of life stuffed into a twenty-metre-long metal tube and cooked at forty-three degrees Celsius.
Gerald squeezed down the corridor. People smiled and made way for him. He reached the end and the door opened. Alisha and Ruby walked in. They said nothing as they brushed past on their way back to the chairman’s carriage.
‘So that’s the way it’s going to be,’ Gerald mumbled. He blundered further along the train. It was getting late and the main ceiling lights had dimmed. Parents were bundling their children into bunks. There was no need for blankets or sheets. Gerald paused in the entryway to the next carriage, by the toilets. The unfamiliar diet of the last few days gurgled deep within. He had the sudden urge to go. He shouldered the door and stumbled into a compartment that consisted of a battered metal sink on the wall and a hole in the floor. Gerald took one gulp of the rancid air and thought about retreating. But his belly told him otherwise. He unbuckled his pants, balanced on footpads either side of the hole, clutched a handle bolted to the wall and squatted. The train jolted and jerked from side to side. He glanced down at the ghostly image of rail sleepers flickering past beneath him as he made his contribution to the Indian countryside. He washed his hands and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He was shocked.
There were bags under his eyes and his face was pulled into a natural scowl.
He pushed back into the carriage and fell into the nearest vacant space on a bench seat. He dropped his backpack between his feet and his head into his hands. The woman sitting next to him was doling out dinner to her children and husband. She handed each of them a round piece of bread dolloped with bright orange pickle. Two girls not quite in their teens and a boy aged four or five munched on the food. Between bites the girls played peek-a-boo with their brother who giggled.
The sight of these people enjoying a family meal left Gerald hollow. His parents had dumped him the moment the inheritance came through. He wasn’t likely to have a meal with them any time soon. And he had just spent the day killing off pretty much the only friendships he had. All the money in the world wasn’t doing him too many favours at the moment.
He felt guilty. Ashamed at the way he had treated Alisha. How could he have been so stupid? Ruby was right. There was no way Alisha could be acting as some sort of spy. And Sam? Sam had saved Gerald’s life when he was attacked by the thin man—how could he ever fight with Sam?
The door to the carriage opened and two men rolled in with the sway of the train. They were selling food and Gerald suddenly felt very hungry. One man carried a tray of fried pastries and the other had a stainless steel pail sloshing with a watery stew. The man placed the bucket on the floor and Gerald asked for some samosas. He rattled a hand inside his backpack looking for his wallet.
‘Sorry,’ Gerald said, ‘it’s right at the bottom. Hold on.’ He pushed his drawing pad to one side and Ruby’s travel guide to the other. There was his wallet, wedged under the bandit’s knife. He balanced the dagger on his lap and pulled out some rupees. The train took a sudden lurch as it rounded a bend, jostling Gerald from his seat. The knife splashed into the bucket of stew.
The food vendor cried out. Heads turned the length of the carriage.
Gerald was aghast.
‘I am so sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll pay for it.’ He peeled off more notes, painfully aware that he looked like a rich tosspot throwing his money around. The vendor seemed happy with the deal and people’s heads returned to their business.
But the knife.
Gerald peered into the bucket of grey soup. Chunks of random vegetable floated on the oily surface. He steeled himself to stick his hand in to feel about when, out of the depths, the image of his family crest bobbed up among the carrots.
Gerald arched an eyebrow. ‘Interesting,’ he said. He clamped a thumb and forefinger around the butt of the dagger and plucked it out of the stew. The vendor gave him a cloth to wipe it clean and then moved on up the carriage. Gerald laid the dagger across his palm, weighing it as if on a pair of scales.
‘Too heavy to float,’ he muttered. ‘Unless…’
He inspected the image of his family seal on the end of the wooden handle. There was a fine line running around the circumference of the insignia. Gerald gripped the butt and twisted. The end came off in his hand.
He glanced about. No one was paying him any attention. He peered inside the handle of the dagger. It was hollow and dry. He poked a finger in the opening and felt something—a piece of paper. Gerald slid it out and flattened it on his knee. It was covered in child-like writing and at the bottom was printed a number: 85.
‘The missing page from Lethbridge’s notebook,’ Gerald breathed. ‘We’ve had it all this time.’ His eyes scanned the front. Then the back. And then locked on a single sentence.
His mind started buzzing. He reached into his pack and found the three envelopes that he’d taken from Green’s desk. Then he pulled out Ruby’s travel guide and flicked to the index. He turned to a map and ran a finger down the page. Then stopped.
‘Mama the ram,’ he laughed. ‘How about that.’
He folded the page into his shirt pocket, shovelled everything else into his pack and barged out of the carriage.
Gerald reached the end of the train at a run and heaved the door. There was a light on at the far end near the lounge area. He passed the bunks and saw they were all empty. That’s good; everyone’s still awake. Because he had some serious talking to do.
He stepped into the m
ain section of the carriage. Sam was face down on his favourite pile of cushions. But there was something about the way he was lying that wasn’t quite right. Next he noticed Alisha. She was sitting stiffly on the lounge, her hands in her lap. Her wrists were bound together with black tape. And then he saw Ruby. She was sitting at the table. Her hands were behind her back and a large red cloth was stuffed into her mouth. Seated next to her was a man. He was holding a pencil-thin dagger to her throat. The man was dressed in a black suit with a black shirt buttoned at the neck. A broad-brimmed black hat cast a shadow across his face. And even though it was approaching midnight, he wore sunglasses of the darkest shade imaginable. He was achingly thin, little more than a skeleton wrapped in a skin of a deathly white. A stench of bleach wafted from him.
‘Mister Wilkins,’ the thin man hissed. ‘I was wondering when you would make an appearance.’
Chapter 18
Fear gripped Gerald’s stomach with both hands and twisted. For a few seconds he forgot to breathe. The thin man was alive. Alive and holding a knife at Ruby’s throat.
Gerald’s eyes darted around the carriage. Sam was still motionless on the floor.
‘He’ll wake up…eventually,’ the thin man said. Gerald shivered at the voice. ‘It appears Mr Valentine is quite attached to Miss Gupta. He took some exception to my tying her up.’ The thin man turned his head to look at Sam’s immobile body. ‘A temporary solution to a permanent problem.’
Alisha sat unmoving on the lounge, her head held high. If she was afraid, she hid it well. Ruby, however, was all belligerence. She bit down on the gag in her mouth with undisguised fury.
‘A pity he’s asleep,’ the thin man continued. ‘I have so much to thank him for.’ He raised a gloved hand and removed his hat. Gerald gagged. He was staring at something straight from a 1950s horror film—one side of the face was scarred beyond recognition, a melted and twisted mask in its place. The hair was a burnt stubble. Ruby recoiled but the thin man snatched hold of her upper arm and jabbed the dagger point under her chin.
‘I have been in a great deal of pain lately so I may not be my usual pleasant self.’ He lashed out with a boot and collected Sam in the ribs. A low moan came up from the cushions.
Gerald fought to keep calm. ‘What do you want?’ he said, his voice as steady as he could keep it. ‘Green got what he was looking for. Wasn’t the golden rod enough?’
The thin man released Ruby and launched himself across the carriage. His hand shot out and gripped Gerald’s right shoulder, wrenching out a howl of pain.
‘After what you and your friend did to me, I think the niceties are no longer necessary.’
He hauled Gerald up off the floor until their noses touched. The stench of bleach was overpowering. Gerald cried out in agony. The thin man answered with his own wide-eyed wail of torment from behind a ragged curtain of cauterised skin. The strain on damaged flesh was there for all to see. Gerald was flung onto the floor. The thin man dropped on him with a knee to the chest and the tip of the dagger against his side.
‘Tell me about the emerald casket,’ he demanded. ‘Sir Mason doesn’t have time to waste.’
‘Emerald casket? I don’t know—’
The first slap knocked a chip from Gerald’s front tooth. The next two were even harder.
‘When you and your friend set me on fire, Mr Wilkins, my face was not the only thing to melt away— I’ve lost my patience as well.’ He grabbed Gerald’s hand and slammed it to the floor.
The thin man raised the dagger and held it above Gerald’s palm.
‘This will hurt…a lot.’ The thin man tensed, ready to drive the dagger down. Gerald stared in horror at the knifepoint.
A voice rang out. It was Alisha. ‘It’s in the temple!’ she cried. ‘In the lost city. The Temple of Surya.’
The thin man didn’t move his eyes from Gerald’s terrified face. ‘Where in the temple?’ he demanded.
‘Under a stone slab. Buried beneath the main shrine, below the statue of the dancing goddess.’ Alisha looked spent.
‘You knew about this all the time?’ Ruby had managed to spit the rag from her mouth. She was appalled. ‘You’ve been lying to us?’
Alisha straightened herself and resumed her born-to-rule posture. She addressed the thin man as if speaking to a servant. ‘I have told you where to find the emerald casket. You must go now.’
The thin man sneered. He raised himself from the floor, thrusting a knee into Gerald’s ribs. ‘You’re not at home ordering the help around now, sweetie. It’s hours till we reach the next station. Plenty of time for me to enjoy some revenge.’ He stabbed a boot under Sam’s body and rolled him over. Sam lolled onto his back. A low groan came from his lips. The thin man glared down at him and his distorted features warped into a sick smile. His hand tightened around the hilt of the dagger.
Gerald threw himself up from the floor and around the thin man’s neck, knocking him against the table and driving out a yowl of pain. The villain slashed around with the blade, missing Gerald’s cheek by millimetres. A jolt of the train threw them both to the floor. Gerald landed on his back. He looked up to find the thin man hovering over him, the dagger pointed at his heart. The knife drove home, piercing through cloth and skewering the backpack that Gerald had whipped across to shield himself. The thin man fell upon him, wrestling to extract the knife. Gerald grabbed him by the wrist and they rolled on the floor in a desperate battle.
Gerald kicked his way free, sending the thin man sliding on his back towards the door. The villain stumbled to his knees and turned to Gerald. Blood was smeared across the welts on the thin man’s face.
Lying on the floor next to the thin man’s leg was a black velvet bag. Half spilled out was a large rectangular gem of the deepest green.
‘The emerald key,’ Gerald whispered. Without thinking, he made a dive for it. But the thin man was faster. He scooped up the gem and jammed it into his pocket. Gerald shouldered into the thin man’s side and sent the villain flying.
Then Ruby spoke.
‘The train’s stopped.’
The thin man paused to check his senses. Gerald dragged himself to his feet and looked about. Ruby was right. The carriage was still. But they weren’t due at the next station until dawn.
The thin man edged back, never taking his eyes from Gerald, and pulled open the carriage’s interconnecting door. Over the man’s shoulder, Gerald could see the endless blackness of night and what appeared to be a red tail light on the back of the train shrinking into the distance. They’d been cut free.
At that moment four bandits smashed into the carriage. Two came through the windows on either side, one dropped through the skylight and one swung feet-first through the door. A pair of ankles wrapped around the thin man’s neck and wrenched him out into the night. The bandit girl swung back inside and landed on the rug with the elegance of a cat jumping from a table.
She switched on a one-hundred-watt smile. ‘Hello, Gerald,’ she said. ‘Nice to see you again.’ A second later everything went black.
Gerald couldn’t move or see a thing. He was trussed up tight and seemed to have a bag pulled over his head. He was lying face down across the back of something that, judging by the smell, could only be a horse. The beast didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Gerald was starting to feel seasick from the constant rise and fall. He could hear whispers but didn’t recognise any of the words. He had no idea if Sam and Ruby were close by. Or Alisha. Not that he ever wanted to see her again.
Gerald stayed quiet. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself. The last thing he could remember with any clarity was when the lights went out on the train. That and the smile on the bandit girl’s face. That smile. No! He had to concentrate. If she was glad to see him he’d hardly be tied up and thrown over the back of an old nag in the middle of the night a million miles from anywhere.
The horse ambled onwards. Gerald tried to think of something other than the churning sensation in his stomach. It looked like his
suspicions about Alisha had been correct. What a lying cow she’d turned out to be. She’d known the location of the second casket all along. An emerald casket.
And Sir Mason Green was back—and not just in some weird dream.
Gerald shuddered. What was Green up to, and why did it always seem to involve him? Gerald’s mind cast back to the wall in the Green Room at the Rattigan Club, the silver letter opener stabbed into his throat and the hole burned into his forehead.
And on top of all that he now had a deadly cult of violent bandits to worry about, including one whose kisses set the pit of his stomach on fire. No! Must concentrate!
Why couldn’t his holidays be more like other people’s?
After what seemed an age, he came to a halt. Two sets of hands grabbed him and pulled him down to his feet. The binds around his ankles were cut and a sharp push between the shoulders propelled him forwards. His boots scuffled across rocky ground. He staggered along, glad to get some feeling back into his legs.
Fifty paces later and another shove in the back sent Gerald sprawling to the ground. Rough hands rolled him over and his wrists were cut free. The bag was pulled from his head.
He was in a tent—a big army-style tent, all heavy canvas and olive green. The back of a large man with shoulders like a bison disappeared through a flap in one wall.
‘Gerald!’
Ruby’s voice rang out. She and Sam were crouched in a corner and they raced across, lifting him to his feet.
Gerald was relieved that Sam had recovered from his ordeal with the thin man. And Sam was quick with an apology.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I was so messed up with this whole Alisha thing. I couldn’t believe what you were saying. But you were right. She knows exactly where the casket is hidden.’
‘No, it’s my fault,’ Gerald said. ‘I got carried away with the idea of getting even with Mason Green.’ He looked from Sam to Ruby.
The Emerald Casket Page 18