The Tunnels of Tarcoola (16 page)

KITTY
and Martin took one arm each and half-dragged the man as he stumbled through the shrubbery. They guided him through the hole in the fence to the lane behind Cec's house.

The back gate was unlocked. As they pushed through, a cacophony of barking started up.

‘Get it off me!' screamed the afflicted man.

‘Don't be silly,' said Kitty. ‘She's just being friendly.'

Sweetheart blundered around, impeding their progress and nipping at their feet, and Cec came to the back door to see what was going on.

‘Cec!' called Kitty. ‘Can you please call an ambulance? This man's been bitten by a snake.'

‘I knew it!' Cec's face lit up. ‘Didn't I always say there was snakes? I knew it!'

Win's face appeared at the door, and she and Cec drew the frightened man inside.

‘Right,' said Kitty. ‘Now let's grab some axes or whatever we can find in Cec's shed, and go after that . . . that . . . '

Martin looked at her with astonishment. Her fists were clenched and her round face was flushed with determination. The thought of her taking on the tall man was almost comical, but something warned him not to laugh.

An unfamiliar ringtone started to play. Kitty looked around, puzzled. ‘Surely Cec and Win haven't got a . . . '

Martin said, ‘Kitty, it's you.'

‘But I . . . ' She fumbled at her clothes. ‘Of course, I've still got David's phone.' She pulled it out of her pocket. It was Andrea.

‘Kitty? I'm with David. He swam the Doughnut!'

‘Wow! Is he okay?'

‘Yeah, look, we're going to his place so he can dry off. Get over there as quickly as you can.'

‘Right!' She slid the phone shut. ‘Sorry, Cec,' she called. ‘We have to go. Emergency at home.' She grabbed Martin's arm.

‘Thanks for looking after our friend here,' Martin called as they ran back towards the back gate. ‘Can you get his name and address? We want to send him a Get Well card.'

On the way, Kitty asked a few awkward questions, but before long she was puffing too much to speak. Martin simplified his story, saying that he had started to worry after her phone call, and had finally decided to go looking for them.

‘When I saw the padlock on the trapdoor, I thought there might be trouble,' he said, ‘so I found that bit of wood in the cellar and went down to the other entrance near the statue to wait for you. I was only just in time.'

Andrea answered the door at David's house.

‘David's just getting some dry clothes on,' she said.

As they crowded into the kitchen, David's grandfather came in through the back door.

‘Hello!' he said. ‘Martin and Kitty, you look like children who've been up to something.'

Andrea shrank back behind Martin. The old man smiled at her.

‘And an ally in the cause!'

‘Huh?'

‘Did I not see you at the Town Hall last night, exercising your citizen's right of dissent?'

‘Oh, umm – yeah, I suppose so.'

‘I'm Moshe.' He held out a hand.

‘Oh, hi. I'm Andrea.' They shook hands. ‘Actually, we've got something here . . . David wants to show you himself.' She put her hand on the package.

‘Really? Intriguing. I think this calls for tea,' said the old man, switching on the kettle.

By the time Moshe had handed out herbal tea and home-made biscuits, and Andrea had unwrapped the box and set it in the middle of the table, David had joined them and his mother had come home.

‘What's all this?' she said.

‘I promise you'll get all the details later,' said David. ‘But this box was more or less hidden in Tarcoola. Harold Buckingham has been trying to find it, and we got there first.'

‘You have to be joking!'

‘No joke, Mother. Shall we open it?'

They all leaned in.

‘Tell you what,' said David kindly. ‘You do the honours, Kitty.'

Trembling, she fumbled with the unusual catch. Then there was a faint click and the box sprang open.

Nestled in a bed of deep blue velvet was a glittering necklace. It was set with colourless stones which caught the light. The centrepiece was a small, richly coloured red stone.

Nobody spoke for a moment. David's mother stroked the red stone. ‘It's pretty,' she said at last.

‘So it is treasure, Kitty,' said Martin flatly.

‘Listen,' Andrea addressed Moshe directly. ‘We went through a lot to get this. Some men were going to kill us for it.'

Moshe stepped out the back door and called out, ‘Roger? Are you at home? Would you care to come and look at something for us?'

A minute later Roger Mason was at the door, perspiring curiosity. He peered at the necklace through a jeweller's eyeglass.

‘Very nice, very nice. Worth a bit. Josef Woolf, you say? Yes, he would have brought it from Prague, certainly. Could have been his mother's. Not real diamonds, of course, but nicely made. That's a garnet, not a ruby. Hard to put a value on it. Could be in the thousands, I suppose. Rather lovely . . . Hmmm.'

His attention wandered.

‘Personally, what I find more interesting is the box.' He picked it up and ran his fat fingers over it. ‘Beautiful piece of work, this. See how the design is continuous as you move over the different surfaces? But what's
really
intriguing about these boxes . . . ' His hands were busy. ‘There's nearly always a secret . . . ' – suddenly there was a sharp click – ‘ . . . drawer!' The bottom section of the box popped out, revealing a compartment stuffed with papers.

The phone rang.

‘It's your mother, Martin,' said David's mother. ‘She's looking for you and Kitty.'

‘Oh no!' Martin grabbed the phone. ‘Sorry, Mum. Yeah, I ran into Kitty, so we were coming home together. Yeah, sorry, David fell in the water and we just came home with him while he . . . No, he's fine, he's fine . . . No, we didn't . . . No, it's all right. We'll be home really soon.' He hung up. ‘Parents! Oh, sorry.'

Moshe was going through the papers.

‘For a start,' he said, ‘Here are the title deeds to a house – that will be Tarcoola. Yes, there's the name.'

David's mother pounced on the documents.

‘A will,' she said. ‘What we want now is a will.'

Moshe kept looking. ‘There are a few things here,' he said. ‘Two or three letters, certificates . . . Sorry to be slow, but this stuff is in several languages, some of which I don't know. But I can't see anything that looks like a will.'

He looked worried. ‘There's definitely not a will in English or German here. There's some stuff in Czech, which he would have spoken, but nothing that looks remotely like a will to me. I can't be sure until we get it all translated, though.'

‘This is not good news,' said Roger Mason. ‘The title deeds and no will. This is just what Harold Buckingham needs.'

‘Can't you just hide them again?' pleaded Kitty.

‘Darling, you do know I'm a lawyer?' said David's mother gently. ‘There's this inconvenient thing called professional ethics. He owns the house, so technically this stuff belongs to him and we are obliged to hand it over.'

‘That sucks!' said Martin.

‘Hey, I'm just the messenger. And by the way, I'm not asking yet how you kids got hold of this stuff, because there might be a teeny matter of trespass.'

‘But Mum,' protested David, ‘You're not going to just call Harold Buckingham, and tell him to come and get his prize?'

‘No, of course not. I'll make it as hard as I can. Papa, how long will it take you to go through all that other stuff? Maybe there's something in there that can help us.'

‘No problem, Linda. If you can hold off until the end of the week, I'm sure I can get to the bottom of this. There has to be a good reason why Josef Woolf put these documents in a box and hid them.'

‘That's right!' said Kitty. ‘It's going to be all right!'

‘Ah, the optimism of the young,' sighed David's mother.

‘DAVID'S
parents have invited us for lunch,' said Kitty's mother. ‘The whole family. Won't that be nice? I don't know where Linda finds the time to cook, with that job of hers, and Alex works horrendous hours.'

‘They all cook,' said Kitty. ‘And David's grandad makes great cakes. I can't wait. I really, really can't wait.'

Kitty rang David. ‘Does this mean Moshe has sorted out all that stuff?'

‘Looks like it. He won't tell me anything yet. He's been having a ball – on the computer and the phone all day and all night, faxes flying everywhere. And I don't know what he's come up with, but it can't be all bad. I've never seen him so excited.'

ANDREA
said to her mother, ‘We're going to lunch at David's on Saturday. You're invited too.'

‘Oh, sorry, love. I'll probably have to work a double shift.'

‘Mum, they're really friendly people. They're not, you know, snobby. It'd be so good if you could come.'

‘Well, I'll try and get away. You go, love, but tell them not to wait – tell them I'll get there if I can.'

HELPING
his mother in the kitchen, David said, ‘I still think we should have gone to the cops about those men.'

‘I know the cops,' said his mother. ‘You wouldn't have got a hearing.'

‘That tall one threatened to kill me,' persisted David. ‘And he said “Lock them up in the house and get the fuel.” What do you think he meant by fuel? I think they were going to burn the house down, maybe with us inside it.'

‘Did you hear him say that, about the fuel?'

‘Well, not me personally, but . . . '

‘David, men like that, stupid men, will say anything to scare kids. It's not a crime. It's only a crime if they actually do something.'

‘He pulled a gun!'

‘Evidence?'

‘Well . . . Marty went back to look for it, but it disappeared.'

‘Soooo . . . '

‘He hit Kitty. Knocked her down.'

‘Yes, and she didn't have any bruises. I know, I'm talking like a lawyer again. See, it's only your word, the four of you, against theirs. You were trespassing on private property, and as far as I know those guys were employed by Buckingham as some sort of security. They don't seem to be around any more, by the way. He's got a couple of Korean guys now. I think he likes the new image.'

‘That man is an . . . '

‘Don't say it, David. Your father is allowed to use bad language because he has a stressful occupation. That doesn't apply to you.'

‘Okay, Your Honour.'

ANDREA
and the O'Brien family arrived together. The kitchen table was laden with food, and there were extra chairs arranged in the living room. Roger Mason had been invited too, and he was eying the table, clearly eager to get started.

‘Martin and Kitty tell me you've got some sort of announcement to make,' said Paul O'Brien, shaking Moshe's hand. ‘What exactly have they been up to?'

‘Suffice to say they stumbled on some old documents,' Moshe replied smoothly. David caught Kitty's eye behind her mother's back. She nodded at Moshe and grinned approvingly.

‘I've been sorting them out and having them translated,' Moshe went on, ‘and once we've got ourselves something to eat, I'm going to tell you all a little story.'

‘What sort of documents?' asked Kitty's mother.

‘They're related to Tarcoola – to the development,' said David's mother. ‘That's what Papa's going to tell us about. We want to know whether it's good news or bad news for Harold Buckingham.'

‘Aha! Bad news, I hope,' said Paul.

‘Buckingham knows we've got them,' said Moshe. ‘I've had a threatening letter from a solicitor, saying I'd better hand them over. He probably thought Linda and I put you kids up to the whole thing.'

David's father came downstairs, holding a laptop.

‘Put that away!' said his wife.

‘Oh! Sorry – forgot I had it.' He disappeared again, reappearing empty-handed a moment later.

‘No phone?' She patted him down. ‘Okay, you're good.'

They all started circulating the table, piling plates high with food. As they settled on chairs and couches and started eating, there was a ring at the door.

David's father came back, chatting animatedly to Andrea's mother, who was pink in the face and silent. David's mother stepped forward.

‘Chris! Great to see you. Grab a plate, you've got some catching up to do. Now, red or white wine?'

When they were all settled Moshe refilled his glass, spread out the box and its contents on the coffee table, and began.

‘This story starts in 1932, when Josef Freudenthal married a lovely young woman called Naomi Weinsheimer. Well, let's surmise she was lovely. You'll allow me some poetic licence here.'

He held up a marriage certificate.

‘Josef was a Czech national, some sort of industrialist with interests in various German cities as well as Prague. The happy couple set up house in Berlin, and their lives were complete with the arrival of a son, Oskar, in 1935. Here is the birth certificate.

‘But the 1930s, as it turned out, was not a good time for a young family in Europe. Not if you were Jewish, anyway, like the Freudenthals. Things came to a head on the night of the ninth of November, nineteenth thirty-eight. Hatred, stirred up by Hitler for his own purposes, boiled to the surface. People rampaged through the streets of German cities, attacking Jews and wrecking their shops and businesses. They call it
Kristallnacht
because of all the broken glass. On that night many Jews were killed and many more were taken away, nobody quite knew where.

‘Josef and Naomi were in Berlin, at the epicentre, and we can only imagine their terror. Afterwards, they seem to have made up their minds that Naomi and little Oskar would be safer in Czechoslovakia, so Josef sent them to Prague.'

He held up a handwritten note.

‘This,' he said with pleasure, ‘is in Yiddish. I had to enlist the help of my old friend Arnold in translating it. Yiddish was spoken in Jewish families right through Eastern Europe before the war. My parents spoke it when I was young, but I'm pretty rusty now. The letter says, more or less, “Dearest Josef, I miss you, I hope you are being careful, I pray that this madness will end soon and we can come home, etcetera.”

‘Well, as we know, the madness didn't end, and things got very bad very quickly for Jews in Germany and Czechoslovakia. So Josef Freudenthal hatched a plan. He moved his money out of Germany, probably into Switzerland, and got himself a new, false identity – Josef Woolf. Now we find Josef Woolf marrying an American woman called Myrtle Carlyon.' He held up another marriage certificate.

‘An American woman?' cut in Andrea. ‘But is she . . . '

‘The dreaded Mrs Woolf, yes.'

‘The Mrs Woolf who came here after the war?'

‘Yes.'

‘But does that mean she wasn't really . . . '

‘Let's finish the story first, then we'll discuss the implications, hmm?' Moshe shuffled the papers, looking for the next bit of evidence.

‘Now, Naomi knew about this sham marriage . . . '

‘Wait a minute,' said Kitty. ‘Did he marry this American woman or not?'

‘He married her,' said Moshe patiently, ‘but it wasn't legal because he was still married to Naomi. It was what's called bigamy. I'm afraid Josef Freudenthal – or Josef Woolf if you like – was a bigamist.'

‘Oh, poor Myrtle,' said Kitty.

‘No, not poor Myrtle at all. She knew quite well what she was doing. Josef was a rich man, and he would have paid her to do this. See here, we have another letter from Naomi, in which she says . . . hmmm . . . “Tell Myrtle I'm grateful.” '

‘Why would they do that?' asked Kitty's mother.

‘I would assume it was because Myrtle was American,' said Moshe. ‘She could get him out of Europe, to America. Once he got there, he probably planned to go back to his original identity and arrange to bring out Naomi and the boy. Of course, he had no idea that that would have been impossible. Impossible.'

He sighed heavily and gazed at the floor, lost in thought for a while. The others waited politely. At last he resumed.

‘However, it seems Myrtle got cold feet in September 1939, when war was declared. So she deserted him, leaving this note: “Dear Joe, Getting too hot round here for little old me. See you in Berlin or New York after the war, depending who wins. Look after all that loot, honey. I've got your IOU for my share. So long, Myrtle.” '

‘Charming,' said Andrea's mother.

‘What's an IOU?' asked Andrea.

‘Literally, “I owe you” ,' explained David's mother. ‘The plan must have involved him paying Myrtle more money when they all got to America.'

‘So what happened next?' asked Kitty, bouncing with impatience.

‘Well, there's a big leap here, because we find Josef in Australia, having managed to bring his money and get himself established here. No doubt his idea was to set himself up somewhere safe and send for his real wife and child.

‘However, in October 1939 the Nazis began to deport Jews from Czechoslovakia to Poland, transporting them in locked passenger trains. Those who survived the journey were put into Polish ghettos. It seems Naomi and Oskar went to the Warsaw ghetto.

‘Conditions in the ghettos were bad, very bad, and thousands of people died of starvation and random killings. In early 1941, Josef received this letter from a friend, smuggled out of Warsaw. The letter's in Czech, so I had to have it translated. With it is a death certificate in Polish. I had a Polish friend look at it, just to make sure.'

His sombre expression was enough to tell the rest. Kitty and Andrea were both crying. Kitty's mother bowed her head and covered her eyes.

David's father brought in a tray of coffee, and Moshe paused to pour himself a cup. When he sat down again the white cat jumped onto his lap and curled up, purring.

‘So Naomi died in the Warsaw Ghetto, as did many thousands. Josef never had a chance of getting his family out. Not a chance. I doubt if he ever understood that.'

David's mother Linda got up and went into the kitchen, kissing the top of Moshe's head as she went past.

‘After the shock of receiving that letter,' continued Moshe, ‘I suppose Josef just threw himself into work. He built up his business, became an important man. And Clarissa . . . I had no idea that Clarissa Gordon was alive, girls, until you told me what you had found out. From what I can gather, she came to Tarcoola originally as the housekeeper. It's a classic story, isn't it? She was young and beautiful, and her world couldn't have been further away from the one he had escaped. I suppose it was her innocence that appealed to him. He doesn't seem to have told her anything about his past. Whatever . . . In January 1942, he married her.' He put a marriage certificate on top of the pile.

Linda started bringing plates of cake and biscuits into the room.

‘Here, let me help you,' said Andrea's mother, jumping up.

‘Do you know something?' said Moshe. ‘I was at their wedding. My parents were invited because my father had worked on the garden.' He smiled at the two girls. ‘See that photograph on the wall, with me as a baby? I didn't realise until now what the occasion was, but it's written on the back.'

It was one of those pictures that you never notice because it had always been there, among the other black-and-white family photos. David looked now in astonishment. The slender, bearded young man, clearly Moshe's father, and the dark-haired woman beside him were both focused on the baby in her arms. Behind them he could see a stone wall, just like the one that enclosed the rose garden.

‘So Clarissa's marriage wasn't bigamy?' Kitty was saying.

‘Certainly not. Naomi was dead, and he was never legally married to Myrtle, so his marriage to Clarissa was quite legitimate. In fact, what we have here is the proof that Josef Woolf, or should I say Josef Freudenthal, was legally married to Clarissa Gordon. As he didn't leave a will, she is his heir, and as she is still alive, she is the owner of all his property, and has been all this time.'

‘The mistress of Tarcoola,' said Kitty.

‘Quite.'

‘But still,' said Linda, handing round plates, ‘wouldn't Buckingham be his descendant? That would give him a claim on the estate. Certainly under German law . . . '

‘I'm ahead of you there, my dear.' Her father beamed at her. ‘Harold Buckingham is not Josef Woolf's descendant. The internet being a wonderful thing, I was able to discover that Myrtle Carlyon married one Walter Buckingham in Idaho in 1941. Harold Buckingham is their grandson. If Myrtle has no claim on Josef Woolf's estate, then Harold doesn't either.'

‘We've got him! Papa, you're a genius. And you kids!' To David's intense embarrassment, Linda danced around, exchanging high-fives with everyone.