The Dali Diaries (The Ballashiels Mysteries Book 2)

by Stewart Ferris

  ‘Wrong?’

  ‘When I said that Dalí didn’t journey to Spain with your grandmother. Because now I have seen the chocolate wrapper.’

  ‘Clear as mud, old boy.’

  ‘The chocolate not only confirms your theory that your grandmother travelled to Spain with Dalí, but I believe it is also an indication of where your mother intended to go before she disappeared.’

  ‘I say, I’m not following you at all, old sleuth. Don’t you think you’re reading rather too much into a random chocolate bar?’ asked Ratty, sensing that his friend’s mind lacked its usual guillotine sharpness. ‘Perhaps we should forget about the chocolate. Now, as for your accommodation, there are twenty bedrooms that could be made serviceable with a little effort.’

  ‘It is not a random chocolate bar. It is a carefully chosen chocolate bar. It is a Lanvin chocolate bar. And I am perfectly happy in this cottage, thank you.’

  Ratty gazed at the squalid surroundings in which his friend felt completely at home, noticing only the degradation and the pungent odours and failing entirely to spot the human shadow that moved across the outside of the cracked window. The Patient did not share the same priorities as other people, and Ratty had to respect that. He plucked the wrapper from the Patient’s fingers and folded it back into his wallet.

  ‘And what is so special about Lanvin chocolate?’ Ratty asked, standing up and preparing to negotiate the perilous exit route from the kitchen.

  ‘At the time of your mother’s disappearance, Lanvin had been using a well-known artist in its advertising. The brand and the artist became inextricably linked for some years. He was nothing less than the public face of Lanvin chocolate.’

  ‘To whom are you referring, old croquembouche?’

  ‘The artist was Salvador Dalí.’

  The human shadow fell once more across the outside of the kitchen window.

  ***

  The Graeco-Roman settlement of Empúries on the Catalan coast had awoken from its two thousand year slumber to a chorus of metal trowels and the grunts of perspiring archaeologists as they slowly revealed its forgotten secrets. And situated in a trench beneath a dusty street between the abandoned amphitheatre and the bone-white acropolis, a statue of the goddess Artemis threatened to crush Ruby Towers. One slip of the restraining strap, one unseen fault line in the snowy marble, and Ruby would be pinned beneath half a ton of stone. The health and safety protocols were strict and clear. She had lost count of the number of times she had drummed them into her students here at Empúries, but this morning her judgement was clouded by the exasperating arrival of a rotund young American called Charlie.

  She adjusted her position and continued to scrape beneath the horizontal marble statue, patiently and respectfully detaching Artemis from the umbilical grip of roots and dry earth. The shattered arm of the goddess lay in too many pieces to be recognisable, and her head lay several feet away, and though her marble torso was intact it had, so far, refused to co-operate in any attempt to lift it.

  ‘Artemis was the original female multi-tasker,’ mumbled Ruby from the base of the trench, reluctantly making conversation with Charlie as he stood watching her from above. ‘She was the Greek goddess of hunting, animals, childbirth, fertility and probably a few other things as well.’

  ‘Shopping? Washing-up?’ asked Charlie.

  She ignored his attempt at wit.

  ‘She’s the best link we have around here to any antediluvian civilisations. As the goddess of fertility she’s been revered for thirty thousand years.’

  ‘At least the face looks nothing like you,’ he yawned.

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘Not so sure about her ass, though.’

  ‘Are you going to stand there taking the piss all day?’ she groaned.

  ‘If I don’t take the piss, who will?’

  Charlie lowered his indelicate frame to the edge of the trench and squatted to get a closer look at the woman he idolised, triggering a cascade of dirt onto Ruby’s legs.

  ‘Hey, watch it!’ she shouted. ‘Don’t get close to the statue. If it falls, it falls on my face. I’m already reaching too far underneath this thing. Don’t put me off.’

  ‘I can climb in and hold it for you,’ offered Charlie.

  ‘No. Stay.’ Ruby shook her head determinedly and stretched beneath the statue to remove a stubborn root.

  Suddenly Artemis moved. A fissure in the stone split wide open. The force of gravity took hold, slicing Artemis’ torso in two across the chest. The safety strap held the lower torso in place, but the upper part and the surviving arm now dropped onto Ruby, pressing against her face and squeezing the back of her head hard against the stones beneath it. She couldn’t speak. Charlie knew it required a considerable cataclysm to silence those English lips; if she couldn’t talk, she was probably asphyxiating. He leapt into the trench and grabbed hold of the section of marble. His dramatic arrival sprayed dirt all around, and he half expected to be scolded for his carelessness, but her predicament made it impossible for her to complain. Grabbing it by the arm, he lifted the stone clear of her face. The limb snapped clean off. He threw it aside and picked up the remaining hunk of marble, thinking it was probably the heaviest thing he had ever lifted. It was more than he could throw out of the trench, so he dropped it at Ruby’s side where it split into two large pieces and several chips, one of which he pocketed discreetly.

  Ruby wriggled away from the remains of the goddess, holding her head in her hands.

  ‘Ever thought of taking up a safer career?’ asked Charlie, helping her to sit up and savouring every second of this unexpected physical contact with her. ‘Like lion taming?’

  He pulled away her hands and inspected the damage. Her nose was bleeding and there were sore-looking grazes on the back of her head, but the injuries seemed superficial. He produced a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin from his pocket and offered it to her, steadying himself for the inevitable criticism that she would deliver either about his choice of diet or his rough handling of the statue. Or both. But the verbal abuse did not come.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  He looked at the shattered pieces of statue and wondered if the bang on the head had affected her more than he had realised.

  ‘Coolsville. You’re welcome, babe,’ he replied, still bracing himself for admonishment. He decided to pre-empt it with an apology. ‘Sorry for, you know, the statue stuff.’

  She wiped the blood from her face, shook the dust from her hair and spat grit from her mouth. Charlie thought it was the most sensual thing he had ever witnessed. He had been obsessed with Ruby since he had watched a documentary about a dig she’d led in Cairo, broadcast during his recent student days. Ruby liked to think of him as her only fan, although he strayed frequently towards the boundary that divided fan from stalker and hence was not someone with whom she relished spending time. When she sensed a heavy, comforting arm making its way around her shoulders she wriggled out from beneath it and climbed out of the trench.

  ‘Have you ever considered stalking an archaeologist your own age?’ she asked.

  He appeared to ponder the question intently, missing any irony or subtle criticism, before answering, ‘Not really. Quite happy to follow you.’

  ‘I’m almost old enough to be your mother, Charlie. Your obsession is unhealthy. Like your diet. And how did you find me this time?’

  ‘Matt said you were here. I’ll tell him you lost a fight with a goddess.’

  Bloody Matt. Two days running he’d managed to interfere with her life even from the other side of the planet.

  ‘You can go now, Charlie. I have work to do.’

  ‘I want you to meet Van Gogh before I go.’

  ‘Van Gogh?’

  ‘The RV. Camper van.’

  ‘I saw it when you showed up at Ratty’s manor house last December.’

  ‘Oh, that. No. This is different. Bought a new one.’

  ‘Already?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘The old one had a figh
t with a tree. Tree won.’

  Ruby rolled her eyes at the excruciating thought processes that flooded Charlie’s mind where most people simply possessed a personality.

  ‘So why is your new camper called “Van Gogh”? Because it’s a work of art?’

  ‘No. Didn’t think of that. It’s because I broke a wing mirror off. Come and see.’

  She poured mineral water over her scratches. The pain and shock were receding, and a little walk to clear her head seemed fitting. She and Charlie strolled slowly back to the site exit along the remains of a street that had been constructed almost three thousand years ago, to the parking area where Charlie had left his camper van.

  ‘Van Gogh’ was easily distinguishable, forlornly lopsided. It was almost identical to the iconic Volkswagen buses of the Seventies, having been cast in South America just a year ago from the same moulds, tools and presses. The sole concession to modernity was a water-cooled engine in place of the old, distinctive air-cooled lump, necessitating a radiator at the front of the van disguised as the familiar front-mounted spare wheel. Other than that, it was old school technology throughout: slow; clunky; and adorable.

  ‘You’re supposed to park under the trees, Charlie. You’re partially blocking the road here.’

  He shrugged. Rules were not his thing.

  ‘Still stealing historic artefacts on your travels?’ she continued.

  ‘No, no. God no. Absolutely given that up. Won’t be going there again. No, no. Anything but that. Oh, no.’

  ‘Pockets?’

  He produced from his trousers a slither of marble that once was part of Artemis.

  ‘Sorry,’ he grunted, handing back the piece of the statue. ‘Not seen many artefacts on this mission.’

  ‘Mission?’ she echoed.

  ‘To visit every branch of Dunkin’ Donuts in Europe,’ he replied, crouching down instinctively to pick up a piece of Roman amphora he’d spotted partially exposed in the soil at his feet. The curved clay fragment fell effortlessly into the capacious side pocket of his trousers. ‘I’m on my way to Barcelona where there are two branches. Only they’re not called Dunkin’ Donuts there. It’s Dunkin’ Coffee. Weird, huh?’

  ‘I’ll let you keep that pottery fragment, Charlie, on the condition that you go now, and keep out of trouble.’

  A spiral of dust announced the arrival of another vehicle at a velocity not normally associated with parking lots. A Renault Espace slid around the corner into view, picking up speed as the track started to fall downhill. But the car did not slow. On seeing Charlie and Ruby standing ahead of him, the driver swerved. The Espace sprayed their faces with dirt. Tyres ploughed sideways furrows in the grit. With a crunch of snapping fibreglass against steel, plastic and glass, the Espace slammed into the front of Van Gogh.

  Charlie and Ruby pulled open the driver’s door and extricated the man from the cocoon of airbags that had cushioned his impact, laying him carefully on the ground. Ruby did a double-take. It was impossible. How could her luck turn out to be so bad? This was the exasperating man with whom she had wasted an hour the previous day. This was Rocco Strauss. Charlie peeked inside the Renault. No part of Rocco’s body had struck any solid surfaces within the car. That made it all the harder to explain the presence of so much blood all over his head and down to his unnecessarily exposed chest.

  ***

  By the time the pair of damaged vehicles had been towed away to the nearest crash centre for repairs, the sun had almost fully set behind the distant mountains. Charlie and Rocco jointly expressed the need for a stiff drink to settle their nerves. Grudgingly, Ruby offered to drive them in her Volvo to the nearby marina town of Empuriabrava, where she was staying. Not wanting them to come anywhere close to her hotel, she chose to take them to The Britannia, a traditional English pub in the heart of a Mediterranean harbour, overlooking dozens of tall sailing yachts and imposing motor boats. Streaks of blood were still visible in Rocco’s hair. He tried to rinse it away, but even with the assistance of the mirror in the tiny washroom of The Britannia his efforts achieved results that were inconsistent at best. Yet, despite his war-weary appearance, Rocco earned no sympathy from his companions. The complete absence of wounds on his body served only to confuse those who had attempted to assist him after the accident, and his uncharacteristic silence on the matter served only to irritate them further.

  Ruby’s intuition rang a klaxon in her head. Something was very wrong about Rocco’s dramatic arrival. She couldn’t place it, but she wanted nothing to do with it.

  It took two glasses of the local cerveza to loosen Rocco’s tongue sufficiently for him to make a confession.

  ‘Stage blood,’ he whispered.

  Ruby almost choked on her rosé. Charlie’s rounded cheeks glowed with fascination.

  ‘Coolsville,’ said Charlie. ‘So you smashed into Van Gogh as a joke, huh?’

  ‘There’s a vial in the glove box. Had you fooled, didn’t I?’ Rocco gave a weak smile that was completely obscured by Ruby’s frosty frown. ‘I often use stage blood when I want to make a grand entrance. Life’s too short to be conventional.’

  Charlie was as enthralled by Rocco’s attitude to life as Ruby was appalled by it.

  ‘I want you to go,’ she said. ‘You and Charlie. I don’t want either of you hanging around here. You’re trouble. First thing tomorrow, I want you both to be on your way. Let me get on with my work here.’

  ‘Is she always like this?’ asked Rocco.

  ‘Yeah. You kinda get used to it,’ replied Charlie.

  ‘I am still here,’ Ruby interjected.

  ‘Anyway, we can’t go tomorrow,’ said Charlie. ‘Van Gogh and Rocco’s Renault are being fixed up.’

  Ruby glugged half a glass of wine in one go to numb the frustration, an action that went unnoticed by Rocco.

  ‘In any case,’ said Rocco, ‘you haven’t asked why I came to see you today.’

  ‘Does it not occur to you that, perhaps, I don’t care?’ she asked.

  ‘I think you will care when I tell you why. When we met at Opoul château at Périllos yesterday, you asked why we were scanning for a message from the future at that particular location.’

  ‘I asked,’ she replied, ‘but that doesn’t mean I really wanted to know.’

  ‘Well, I have to confess that I only gave you half of an answer. The chrononauts chose that site for a far more interesting reason than its view. In the last entry of the last volume of his published diaries, Salvador Dalí wrote about the orgasm of inspiration he experienced at the train station in Perpignan. There was some kind of energy he sensed there, and his painting The Railway Station at Perpignan shows Dalí at the centre of an expanding universe of symbolism and light. Above him is a train, representing the station, and above that are some shapes in the clouds. These shapes match precisely the outline of the ruins of the château at Opoul. Dalí was hinting that there was something special about Opoul, and perhaps it was even more significant to him than Perpignan.’

  ‘So you were led to Opoul by a picture of a cloud?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘It wasn’t me who first discovered the similarity. I have to give that credit to the chrononaut guys. Out of curiosity I overlaid a photo of Opoul with a scan of Dalí’s painting in Photoshop, and it was a perfect match. To them this was just a bit of fun, a way to put a thin layer of meaning onto their chosen location for receiving the sign from the future. I think the first part of the postcode of the village also helped –six, six, six – but it got me thinking. I started looking at other Dalí works and looking for patterns. I’ve found something, Ruby. It’s not far from here. I want to share it with you. You know, in case something happens.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘In case something happens to me,’ he continued. ‘An insurance policy, you could say. A way to ensure that the thing I have found won’t be lost to the world if I get assassinated. Besides, you’re an archaeologist, so you’re going to love it.’

  Ruby was used to cra
zy types who tried to convince her they had found something amazing, and usually it turned out to be wishful thinking or an overactive imagination coupled with the discovery of something in the ground that was of no more significance than litter. Knowing Rocco as she did, her hopes were not high that his claim would be any more valid than those of previous pseudo-archaeologists and historians who had crossed her path.

  ‘Why don’t you just tell me?’

  ‘I’m going to do a little more research first,’ he answered, ‘and when I’m convinced of the facts I will take you to see it.’

  ‘I can’t wait,’ she lied.

  ‘Can I come, too?’ asked Charlie. ‘I’ve done a bit of archaeology. Lasted two semesters of an archaeology degree at university before they threw me out.’

  Rocco looked at Charlie, rolling his eyes across the considerable width of the young man’s belly, and shook his head.

  ‘I am sorry, Charlie, but for logistical reasons that is not going to be possible.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I could have used the accident today as a cover to start a new identity,’ declared Rocco, quickly changing the subject. ‘That would have been cool. Like Paul McCartney.’

  ‘Huh?’ asked Charlie as Ruby sank her head into her hands.

  ‘He was killed in an accident in the Sixties. They replaced him with Billy Shears. Just took a bit of plastic surgery and some music lessons. The clues are all on the Abbey Road album cover and in the lyrics.’

  ‘You can’t compare yourself to that made-up story,’ said Ruby. ‘Your crash wasn’t an accident, for a start.’

  ‘It was!’

  ‘You deliberately drove into Charlie’s camper van.’

  ‘I drove into it. But not deliberately.’

  ‘Rubbish. You set the whole thing up with the fake blood and the accident.’

  ‘Two separate events. Unconnected.’

  ‘You expect us to believe that covering yourself in red paint and crashing your car was a coincidence?’

  ‘When you put it like that,’ said Rocco, suddenly adopting an expression of weighty concern, ‘it does seem suspicious.’

  ‘A confession. At last. Conversation over.’