He reached a mezzanine level; a spiral staircase led down to the dining room. He was about to set foot on the top step when Sam stopped him and whispered, ‘You’ve got to see this.’
Gerald looked back. Ruby was beckoning from an open doorway. They ducked inside and closed the door behind them. Ruby flicked on her headlamp and set the beam wide. ‘Behold,’ she said, ‘the evil witch’s lair.’
The light played across a laboratory that would be the envy of any mad scientist. Racks of beakers lined the stainless steel benches. There were glass flasks and test tubes containing a rainbow array of liquids, bunsen burners and clamp stands, titration tubes and distillation equipment, a stone mortar and pestle, and an entire wall given over to a wooden cabinet with at least a hundred square drawers, each one meticulously labelled.
‘Cactus barbatus,’ Ruby read. ‘Cactus berteri, cactus chlorocarpus…’
‘Yeah, eye of newt, toe of frog,’ Sam said. ‘This must be where she brews up her poisoned apples.’
Gerald shone his light around the room. A whiteboard was attached to the far wall. On it was a map, held in place by a magnet at each corner. And beside the map was a long list. Six of the items were crossed out with a red line.
‘What is this, Nico?’ Gerald asked.
‘It’s a map of the area,’ he said. ‘And this is a list of place names.’
‘What about the red lines?’ Sam said.
‘If it’s a bunch of place names, it could be Charlotte’s checklist of where she thinks the treasure is hidden,’ Gerald said. ‘The crossed out ones might be places she’s already looked. What do you reckon, Nico? You’re the local. Could any of these be a hiding place?’
Nico scratched his chin and thought for a second. ‘The Korykian Caves maybe? I climbed up there last year with my friend. If you go really deep inside, there could be a place.’
Ruby pulled open one of the drawers in the wooden cabinet and peered inside. ‘Shouldn’t we be concentrating on finding the poison that killed Mason Green? I say we take a bunch of this stuff and drop it off at the local police station with a note.’
Gerald was jotting down the place names from the whiteboard onto a piece of paper. ‘I wouldn’t touch any of that,’ he said. ‘Who knows what it could do to you.’
Ruby withdrew her hand from the drawer and wiped it on the back of her shorts. ‘What do we do then?’
Gerald folded the paper into his pocket. ‘There’s enough material in this lab to keep a forensics team busy for a month. Let’s get in touch with Inspector Parrott and tell him what we’ve found. They’re bound to find a trace of the poison.’
They gathered beside the door and switched off their headlamps. ‘Okay, back to the window and back to Nico’s house,’ Gerald said. He eased the door open and slid into the hallway. They crept back up the corridor. Gerald had his hand on the bedroom door handle when the house lights came on. The sudden brightness caught them by surprise—as did the sight of Charlotte standing a bare three metres away from them. She was dressed in her commando chic and was aiming a handgun at Gerald’s head.
‘Do not move,’ she said, cool as a winter’s dawn.
Gerald didn’t hear the shot. He just felt a searing pain in his neck.
And blackness.
Chapter 23
Gerald’s vision was slow to clear. It was as if a set of worn wipers were smearing road grime across a windscreen. He could sense the room around him—the light and the shadows—but nothing gelled. It was as if he was waking from surgery and had no recollection of whether the doctors were supposed to be taking something out or putting something in.
Finally, his eyes cleared and he could lift his head. He went to touch a hand to the pain throbbing from his neck but his arms wouldn’t move. Gerald looked down and discovered he was sitting in a high-backed chair. His wrists were bound to the armrests with gaffer tape.
He was at the end of a long wooden table. Somehow, it looked familiar. It was the dining room that he had seen earlier that night. In Charlotte’s house.
Charlotte’s house!
Gerald’s mind snapped back into gear. It was still dark outside. He tugged at his arms but they were tied tight. Then he found his ankles were taped to the chair legs. He wasn’t going anywhere.
‘You’ve woken, have you?’ Charlotte walked into the room, carrying a wooden tray. She laid it on the table. Gerald was surprised to see a bowl of soup. Steam was winding up from its dark green surface.
‘I thought you might be hungry,’ Charlotte continued. ‘One of the side effects of the drug I used on you, I’m afraid.’ She put the bowl on a placemat in front of him, and a spoon to one side. On the left she put a basket of crusty bread.
Gerald looked at the bowl and felt a twinge in his belly. He was starving, but there was no way he was going to let Charlotte know that.
‘I can’t exactly pick up the spoon, can I?’ he said. His eyes darted around the room. There was no sign of Sam or Ruby, or Nico. Just a cavernous dining room overlooking the valley and the lights of the harbour kilometres below.
Charlotte followed his gaze out the floor-to-ceiling window.
‘It’s like we’re looking down on the world from the nest of the gods,’ she said. ‘I love it. My uncle used to bring me here on summer holidays to help him with his research. There’s a tremendous variety of succulents growing in these hills; they have the most interesting chemical properties. It’s quite the botanist’s treasure trove.’
Gerald listened to her words but couldn’t take his eyes from the soup in front of him. It smelled delicious.
‘Where are the others?’ he asked. He was starting to salivate.
Charlotte pulled out a chair and sat down next to him.
‘Your little friends? They escaped. Scuttled into the night like cockroaches behind the kitchen fridge. They are of no interest to me.’ Charlotte’s porcelain skin glowed in the candlelight from the wooden chandelier high above. She tilted her head to the side and smiled at Gerald. ‘Are you sure you won’t try some soup? I prepared it myself from a very special recipe.’ She picked up the spoon and dipped it into the bowl, turning slow circles in the thick liquid. Gerald’s eyes followed the furrows of creamy green that the spoon left in the surface. His mouth salivated anew. He couldn’t remember ever being this hungry.
Charlotte took the spoon to her lips. She puckered, and blew a cooling breath over the contents. ‘There are all sorts of marvellous herbs in here.’ Her voice was as soft and warm to the ear as the soup promised to be to Gerald’s ravenous stomach. ‘I picked them myself up in the hills.’ She paused and raised her eyes to Gerald. ‘Are you sure I can’t tempt you?’
She held the spoon to Gerald’s mouth, running its rim along his bottom lip. ‘It’s really very good.’
Gerald knew he had to stop himself. There was no telling what nastiness was mixed into the witch’s brew.
The muscles in his neck coiled and he clenched his mouth shut. He had to resist.
But his stomach was howling.
He craved to taste it.
He had to have it.
His lips parted a fraction—and Charlotte’s eyes smiled.
She slid the spoon into Gerald’s mouth and his teeth closed around it.
The warmth flooded through his body like an incoming tide, faster and more overwhelming than anything he experienced on the mud flats at Mont-Saint-Michel.
‘It’s good, isn’t it?’ Charlotte said, tipping another spoonful into Gerald’s now eager mouth. He swallowed and asked for more.
In minutes the bowl was clean. Gerald sat back in his chair, with his eyes closed and his body exultant. He felt incredibly drowsy.
‘What was in that soup?’ Gerald slurred. His mouth struggled to form the words.
Charlotte glowed with pride. ‘Split peas, parsley, mushrooms and ham. And wild thyme and fennel. My mother’s recipe. It’s my favourite.’
Gerald blinked. ‘It’s not drugged?’
Charlot
te laughed. ‘You offend me, Gerald. I take my cooking very seriously. I would never drug someone’s food.’
‘Oh. Good.’
‘It would spoil the taste.’ Charlotte lifted a leather doctor’s bag onto the table. She unclipped the top and popped it open. ‘I find it far more efficient to use a syringe.’ Gerald could see the bag’s red velvet interior was lined with pockets, each one holding a stoppered vial.
‘My little bag of tricks,’ she said with a smile. ‘Now let’s see—no point in using a truth serum on you, Gerald. It’s not like you’re consciously hiding anything. What we really need to do is unlock your deepest memories.’ She selected a vial containing a pink liquid and laid it on the table. From a side pocket, she took out a fresh hypodermic syringe.
Gerald’s eyes fixed on the needle in Charlotte’s hand. ‘What are you going to do?’ His voice was on the edge of panic.
‘As you may have guessed, Gerald, I have quite a talent in the chemistry laboratory.’ She pierced the vial’s seal and filled the syringe with its pink contents. ‘I am going to unlock your memories, Gerald. You may not realise it, but you have a strong link to Delphi. I need to know what you know.’
‘How can I know anything about Delphi? I hadn’t even heard of it until two days ago.’
Charlotte held up the syringe and tapped the barrel with her finger, working out any air bubbles. ‘Maybe so,’ she said. ‘But your family was intimately associated with the place. Who knows what your ancestral genes have locked away inside you.’
Gerald thought about Quintus and the murderous rampage that he and his sons had led through Delphi. He struggled against his bonds. ‘You don’t need to do this,’ he said. ‘It’s not like you need anything more.’
Charlotte pressed the plunger a millimetre; a drop of serum formed at the needle’s tip and wound slowly down its length.
‘I am not an evil person,’ Charlotte said. ‘I just want something really, really badly.’
‘Why can’t you want the cure for cancer really badly? With your skills you could save thousands of lives.’
‘Ah, the answer to cancer,’ Charlotte said. ‘Gerald, with what I’m seeking, I’ll have the answer to everything.’
She smacked the inside of Gerald’s elbow until a vein bulged. Then she moved the needle’s tip to his skin. ‘Now, let’s see what you really know…’
Gerald flinched. His eyes flickered between the needle hovering over his arm and Charlotte’s face focused on the syringe.
Then he sensed a change in the light: the shadows shifted. And over Charlotte’s shoulder came the figure of Ruby hanging upside down by the knees. Her legs were hooked over the wooden chandelier, which was being lowered slowly from the ceiling. Gerald’s eyes darted up. Sam and Nico were on the mezzanine level, easing out the chandelier’s support rope. He looked back to Ruby. She raised a finger to her lips. And winked. Her spare hand dropped into Charlotte’s bag on the table. A second later, she pulled out a handgun.
‘This may sting a little,’ Charlotte said, as she brought the needle to Gerald’s arm.
Gerald sucked in a breath.
And the chandelier dropped.
Ruby went sprawling across the table top.
Charlotte swung around, holding the syringe out like a weapon. Ruby was flat on her side, tangled in a mess of broken timber and candles. But before Charlotte could move from her chair, Ruby raised the gun towards her. The shot landed a dart in the hollow at the base of Charlotte’s neck. A second later, Charlotte was unconscious on the floor, the hypodermic still in her hand.
Ruby rolled off the table and rushed to Gerald. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked. ‘Did she inject you with anything?’
Gerald didn’t respond. He was staring at the livid red mark across his forearm. Charlotte’s needle must have scratched him as she turned to face Ruby. A ribbon of blood began to seep from the wound.
‘Gerald?’
Gerald could sense Ruby pulling at his bonds. But even that was lost to him as his eyes blurred and his mouth sagged. All he could see was a dank stone cavern. And all he could hear was a thunderous roar.
A roar that sounded like, Nothing is certain.
Chapter 24
Sam popped another olive into his mouth. He bit into the meaty flesh, chewed a few times then took delight in spitting the pit as far as he could into the bushes.
‘Do you have to do that?’ Ruby said. She dipped a chunk of bread into a pot of tzatziki and took a bite.
‘Bet you can’t get as far as me,’ Sam said. He fired another pit deep into the undergrowth. A kitten pounced on it, throwing itself between two pot plants. Sam picked up a second kitten that had been curling itself between his legs and tickled it under the chin.
Ruby took another bite of bread and eyed her brother evenly. ‘You’re on.’
Nico’s backyard rang to the sound of Sam and Ruby’s claims of victory as olive pits sprayed across the grass and stones. Gerald sat in a threadbare wicker chair; its seat was pushed through and weeds wound up each leg. He was struggling to keep his eyes open as the afternoon sun drained away the last of his energy. He turned a lazy eye towards Nico, who was helping himself to the lunch platter that his aunt had brought out for them.
They had slept in following their midnight visit to Charlotte’s house. Somehow, with Sam and Ruby’s help, Gerald had been able to get back to Nico’s place. He was still trying to make sense of the vision he’d had—it was the same dank dungeon that he’d daydreamed in his history class all those weeks before. It made no sense. And Gerald knew he couldn’t relax. They’d left Charlotte drugged on her dining room floor but she would soon be on the move. Gerald had called Inspector Parrott in London but the line kept dropping out.
‘Nico,’ Gerald said. The boy looked up from his lunch. ‘What were those caves called again?’
‘The Korykian caves,’ Nico said. ‘They’re about a two-hour walk from here.’
‘And what’s there?’
‘Some caves. There’s a hole in the ground. Not much else.’
‘What about this Oracle woman?’
‘The Pythia.’
‘Yeah, her. Would she ever visit the caves?’
Nico shook his head. ‘Once a woman became the Pythia, she never left the temple. She spent the rest of her life in the service of Apollo.’
‘Until she died?’ Gerald said. ‘That’s some commitment. What would she do all day?’
‘Not much. The Oracle would only commune with Apollo once a month or so. She’d go into a chamber under the temple. Legend says it would fill with gas from a crack in the earth and the fumes would send her into a frenzy. She had to sit on a special three-legged chair so she wouldn’t fall in.’
‘And when she was in this frenzy, she’d see the future and give people advice?’ Gerald said.
‘That’s right. She was the most powerful person in the world.’
Ruby dropped down beside Gerald and poured herself a cup of water from a large pitcher. ‘Good to see a woman at the top for a change,’ she said. ‘But I can’t see how the treasure could still be here. Archaeologists have been digging around that site like badgers.’
The lazy afternoon peace was cut by the sound of a helicopter landing somewhere north of town.
Nico shielded his eyes with his hand. ‘We don’t get helicopters at this time of year. Just for injured skiers in the winter.’
Gerald lifted himself out of the broken chair and hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder. ‘Charlotte won’t be waiting around,’ he said. ‘And we shouldn’t be either. I say we check out those caves.’
Something had shifted. Even though Gerald wouldn’t admit it, there was now a new objective. It came from deep within him, an unnamed desire, a slow-burning fuse. Whether it was a response to fate or a suppressed instinct that had been waiting to be triggered, he didn’t know, but Gerald Wilkins was now sure of his path. They had to find the lost treasure of the Oracle of Delphi.
The narrow path zigzagged
up the mountainside, cutting across the rocky cliff face. The going was steep, hot and dusty. Gerald was surprised by how quickly they left the village behind.
They reached a flat spot and clambered onto a large boulder that gave a panoramic view of the valley. The four of them dangled their legs over the edge and passed around a water bottle. They could see right down to the ancient ruins of Delphi: the temple, the amphitheatre, the Sacred Way.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Ruby said, taking in the scene below. ‘It’s like we’re sitting on the edge of the world.’
Sam took a long drink of water. ‘If you like that sort of stuff, I guess.’
Gerald laughed and took the water bottle from Sam. ‘There’s not a lot of poetry in you, is there? Look, I’ve been thinking. Do you remember what Dr Serafini said about twins in history?’
‘About how special we are?’ Sam said.
‘Special. Freak-like. Whichever,’ Gerald said. ‘He mentioned those twin brothers, Castor and Pollux. They took turnabout at being dead.’
‘What about them?’ Sam said.
‘When we were in the museum, before we saw Charlotte, there were two statues of Castor and Pollux. The tour guide said something about there being a cult of the twins around here. Seeing those two statues, and how they were dug out of the ground, gave me an idea.’
‘And what’s that, Howard Carter?’ Ruby said.
‘But his name is Gerald,’ Nico said. ‘Why do you call him Howard Carter.’
‘Howard Carter was the archaeologist who discovered the tomb of King Tut in Egypt,’ Ruby said. ‘It was a joke.’
Nico frowned up at her. ‘You are this boy’s twin sister?’ he asked, jerking a thumb towards Sam.
‘That’s right,’ Ruby said.
Nico nodded. ‘Your jokes aren’t funny either.’
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