Eden Legacy (32 page)

Silence from Frank. When he spoke again, his tone was markedly different. Hard, shrewd and a little bit disquieted. ‘Who is this? I want your name. I want your full name now.’

‘It’s the
Winterton,
isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’ve found the silver.’

‘Who the fuck is this? Are you a journalist?’

‘You have, haven’t you? You’ve found the silver.’

‘I’m warning you, if one word of this leaks—’

She killed the call. A muscle began going crazy along
the line of her jaw. So Daniel hadn’t come here
looking
for the silver. He’d already found it. No. Scratch that. Adam and Emilia had found it. That was surely the only way to explain the involvement of the Landseer Trust. They’d found the silver and had taken advantage of MGS doing a job just up the coast to ask them to come here afterwards. And then Landseer had emailed Daniel to let him know her father and sister had gone missing, and he’d headed straight on down. But with what purpose? Had he come to help find them, or to take advantage of their absence to plunder the silver? She recalled, a little hollowly, how quickly he’d accepted Titch’s suggestion last night that he go back to Eden. She settled her bill and went out, trying to put Daniel out of her mind, focus back on the important stuff, on her father and Emilia, the kidnap and the ransom. But another part of her brain was whirring independently away. The
Winterton’s
lost silver, her father’s investments, the hotel group’s interest in Eden—all these millions swirling around, yet the only people playing for small stakes here were the kidnappers.

She stopped walking abruptly, sensing the outline of a larger picture, wanting to give it the chance to reveal itself. Mustafa coveted Eden; the kidnap had given him the opportunity to win it. But had that been just pure chance, or was there more to it than that? Was it possible, in short, that Mustafa had been behind the kidnap himself, that he’d planned the whole enterprise simply to get her to sign
Eden away? The more she thought about it, the more plausible it became. Even Mustafa’s trip to Ilakaka made sense as a pantomime designed to make her late and so panic her into signing whatever he put in front of her without first reading it; and also to give him credibility should she grow suspicious and try to contest the contract in court. Meanwhile, he’d get to own Eden for a fraction of its true worth. No, for
nothing.
After all, if she’d left the money beneath the tamarind tree, as instructed, he’d have been able to pick it up at his leisure,
and
have the contract granting him Eden too. But he’d only get Eden if first it was hers outright. And for that to be the case …

Her heart seemed to stop on her. She gave a cry of anguish and ran to her new Toyota.

Boris kept Knox closely covered as he marched him upstairs. The way he was behaving, it was like he’d bought his cover story, but he knew better than to take this man for granted. They reached the boathouse doorway, where he’d left his laptop case. He talked Knox through how to set the IP terminal up in line of sight to the satellite, then hook it up to the laptop. When he was done, he made Knox put his hands behind him so that he could bind his wrists with flexi-cuffs. ‘What the hell’s that for?’ asked Knox.

‘Peace of mind,’ Boris told him. He placed the laptop on the work-table, opened it up, established a broadband connection, called Georgia, carried out the security protocols. This wasn’t his usual time-slot; it took over a minute for Sandro to appear. ‘I’ve got someone for you,’ Boris told him, pulling Knox into shot.

Sandro leaned forward, squinted at his screen. ‘Daniel Knox?’ he asked.

‘It’s me,’ said Knox.

‘See?’ said Boris.

Sandro ignored him, addressed Knox instead. ‘You’re planning a salvage project off our coast, I believe,’ he said.

‘Not any more,’ Knox told him. ‘I’ve called it off.’

‘And why should I believe that? You’ve effectively just admitted you were coming after us.’

‘Yes,’ admitted Knox. ‘I
was
coming after you. I was coming after you because you sent your fucking son to Greece where he murdered my fiancée in cold blood; and then put a price on my head and turned me into a fugitive. I couldn’t even visit Gaille’s grave; I couldn’t even
mourn
.’ He seemed to catch the anger rising in himself; he took a long breath. ‘But it’s over. It was over before this. I’ve got more important things in my life now than your family.’

‘Such as?’

‘Such as none of your business.’

‘So you’ll give me your word, then? If we leave you alone, you’ll leave us alone?’

‘Yes. I give you my word.’

‘What is this?’ demanded Boris in Georgian.

‘We’re going to let him go.’

‘But your father told me to—’

‘My father is dead, Boris. He died early this morning.’

Boris went numb. ‘We had a deal.’

‘That deal was with my father. My—’

‘It was with you both. It was with the both of you.’

‘My father is dead. I am now head of the Nergadze family. The deal is off. My decision on this is final.’

‘You can’t do this.’

‘I promised you one hundred thousand euros for finding Mr Knox. You have found Mr Knox. I will pay you your fee in full. On your return, so long as Mr Knox remains unharmed, I will also authorise a bonus for—’

‘No way,’ said Boris. ‘No fucking way. I’ll never get home if I let him live. He’ll go straight to the fucking cops.’

‘He’s given us his word.’

‘His word!’ spat Boris. ‘What good is that?’

‘I trust him.’

‘Of course you fucking trust him. I’d trust him too if I was safe at home in Georgia.’

‘I’m warning you, Boris.’

‘Fifteen months I spent in that fucking Greek prison!
Fifteen months! Do you have any idea what that was like? Do you know what they
did
to me there?’

‘I’m sorry that—’

‘Sorry!’ he scoffed, anger roiling up his heart. ‘What good is sorry? Your father hired me to do a job, and I’m going to do it, and you’re going to pay me the full fee, just like you promised.’ He held up his camera-phone which he’d been holding down low. ‘Did you honestly think I wouldn’t record our little conversations? Is that what you thought? I’ve got video of us discussing this job. I’ve got video of you arranging my gun. I’ll give it to the police if you try to stiff me, I swear I will.’ He slammed down the laptop lid, breaking the connection, then stood there breathing heavily, a tumult of emotions inside him: anger, fear, frustration, the longing for revenge. He glared at Knox, pressed the Heckler & Koch against his temple, pushed him towards the basement steps.

‘What is this?’ asked Knox. ‘I thought we had a deal.’

‘Sure!’ scoffed Boris. ‘So you can hand me to the police again.’

‘I give you my word.’

‘And you think that carries weight with me, do you?’ He pushed Knox ahead of him down the steps. When they reached the bottom, he kicked Knox behind his knees so that he went down upon them.

‘This is crazy,’ said Knox. ‘You don’t need to do this.’

Boris aimed down at him, his finger on the trigger.
Enough of his anger had subsided for him to become aware again of consequences. Sandro would never forgive him for what he’d just done; there was pragmatic and then there was soft. Georgia was dead to him now; he’d therefore have to start all over. But with what? Something on the shelves caught his eye at that moment, like the answer to a prayer. A blue-and-white porcelain bowl, just like one in the press-cuttings Sandro had given him—and that had sold for millions at auction. He edged across, keeping his gun on Knox, picked it up. It was perfect, flawless. And next to it was an enamelled flask that looked to his uneducated eye even more valuable. With the right fence, he could get maybe twenty cents on the dollar. If these pieces were worth what he thought, then he’d—

He whirled around as Knox took advantage of his distraction to leap to his feet and sprint for the steps. Boris brought up his gun but he was too late. He cursed and set down the bowl and ran after him, grabbing the end of the shelving to swing himself around. He reached the stairs just as Knox tripped on the top step and went crashing into the wall, twisting on to his back as he fell. Boris arrived at the top, his anger fully restored, along with his hunger for revenge. He aimed down at Knox’s face, put his finger on the trigger and began to squeeze.

Rebecca was driving to the police station when she realised that word of her visit was almost certain to get back to Mustafa. If he was genuinely on her side, he’d see that as a betrayal; if he was her enemy, it would serve only to put him on his guard. She pulled to the side, therefore, called the station and asked for Chief of Police Andriama. He was away at a meeting, she was told, wasn’t expected back for another hour or two. She tried his mobile but it transferred her straight to voicemail. She left a message for him, giving just a hint of her suspicions and begging him to call her back as soon as possible, then she sat there thinking. At times she almost
convinced herself she was being ridiculously paranoid, that Mustafa was her ally. But then her suspicions would reassert themselves. And there was too much at stake to take them lightly. Thus far, Mustafa only had legal claim to Rebecca’s share in Eden. For him to own it all, Emilia would first have to die. And if Mustafa thought it worth his while to kill Emilia, then he’d surely kill Adam too. Her actions now might determine their fate; she couldn’t afford a single misstep.

She tried to put herself in Mustafa’s mind, work out whether he was the kind to cut his losses at the first setback, or hold his nerve. She still had his five hundred million ariary. If he was greedy, he’d keep Emilia and Adam alive while he arranged a second handover, just in case she insisted on speaking to them again. Yesterday’s fuck-ups might actually have saved their lives. But maybe not for long. She needed to find them fast. The trouble was, she didn’t have the first idea where to look. She couldn’t believe Mustafa would risk holding them at his home, not with his wife and daughter there. Besides, he was an importer–exporter, he’d have warehouses and other such properties all across the town and region. Andriama would surely know of some of them, but the moment they started nosing around, Mustafa would realise they were on to him and take steps to cover his tracks. She couldn’t risk that. She felt helpless. But then she realised she didn’t actually need to find Adam and Emilia at all.
If she could somehow get compelling evidence or even proof that Mustafa was behind the kidnapping, it would give her such a hold over him that she’d surely be able to barter for Adam and Emilia’s release.

A minor incident from her original visit to Mustafa’s house came to her mind. After he’d agreed to help her put together the ransom, she’d asked to freshen up before setting off back to Eden. When he’d led her inside, one of his staff had called him to an important incoming phone call. He’d begged her to excuse him, then opened and closed his office door in such a way that she wouldn’t be able to see inside.

She hadn’t thought anything of this at the time, other than that he valued his privacy; but now she wondered whether there might not have been something in his office that he hadn’t wanted her to see. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was better than sitting here doing nothing. She thrust the Toyota back in gear and accelerated away.

It was the metallic shrieking that stopped Boris from shooting Knox. He knew what it was and what it signified and the world seemed to stop for a moment as he waited for and then heard the crash of shelving that
he himself had precipitated by swinging himself around on it. A cacophony of ceramics shattered on the concrete floor. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again with renewed hatred of Knox. ‘If those two pieces are broken …’ he warned.

‘There are more of them,’ said Knox, his hands above his head. ‘Lots more.’

‘Where?’

He nodded towards the sea. ‘Out there.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I swear. I found them yesterday. I’ll take you out there.’

‘Like you were going to take us to the golden fleece?’ he scoffed.

‘The golden fleece existed,’ said Knox. ‘So does this. You saw those pieces downstairs. Do you think they appeared out of nothing? They came from a Chinese ship that sank outside the reef.’

‘That’s further north.’

‘No. We thought it was, but we were wrong. It made it down here before it sank. That’s where the bowl came from. That’s where the flask came from. And there are dozens more pieces like them. Hundreds. And not just porcelain. Gold and jewellery too.’

‘And you just left it all on the sea-bed?’ sneered Boris.

‘I’m an archaeologist, not a thief.’

Boris coloured, raised the gun at Knox. ‘Where exactly is this place?’ he asked. ‘Describe it to me.’

‘It’s forty metres underwater,’ protested Knox. ‘How am I supposed to describe that?’

‘Then what use are you?’

‘I can show you. I can take you out there.’

He’s a liar,
said a voice in Boris’s head.
A proven liar. Don’t fall for him again.
But the Chinese pieces downstairs had looked real enough. And what if he was telling the truth this time? What if others came down here and found all this wealth that could have been his? He’d be cursing himself for the rest of his life. He motioned Knox to his feet, marched him back downstairs. If either the bowl or the flask had survived the carnage, then he’d have no more need of Knox. But neither had. ‘Okay,’ he told Knox. ‘You’re going to take me out there. But if you try anything, anything at all, by God you’re going to pay.’

Rebecca drove briskly north, anxious to make good time yet without drawing attention to herself. A bank of smoke from some charcoal makers drifted like fog across the road, making her eyes smart and her throat tickle enough to send her into a coughing fit. She came out the far side to find a bus unloading passengers, forcing her to brake sharply and swerve. A pair of panicked goats scrambled
over each other to squirm through sliver-thin gaps in the fence, while a girl in a cut-down wedding dress snatched up a scrawny black chicken from almost beneath her wheel.