Pearced (51 page)

“What?” Is all I can manage, I’m a woman of many words clearly.

James is making tea and breakfast, Pete doesn’t cook of course, she has a maid at home for that, and there are two police officers sitting comfortably in the living room sipping tea.  “They've been whispering to themselves.”  She tells us conspiratorially, “in Spanish, thinking we can't hear and hoping we don't understand.”

“And?” I ask her.

“They're expecting company, to meet them here.” Sounds like it's going to be another long day.  Pete translates their dialogue, wincing at the language, and sending me a warning glance into the bargain. Apparently they like skinny women!  Nothing would surprise me now, and I hug my friend, so glad she is here.  And whilst we chat about her surprise few days retreat away with a hot boy, screams of laughter emanate from behind us as James is reunited with his parents, deep joy all round. Pete pulls on a hoodie in response to further lewd comments from the other room, and passes me a glass of dark red wine, it's just the ticket.

“Pete, what are you doing here?” I hug her tiny frame again, happy to smell civilisation in her perfume.  She passes me a plate with some sour cream filled grilled potato skins and houloumi sticks with breadcrumbs. As I chew, I’m so happy with a link to real life, and of course it's the taste of civilisation, I increase the intensity of my interrogation, with a crooked eyebrow raising and a stern look.

“Jimmy and I fancied a weekend away as you well know, and….well…I couldn’t say no to the promised mystery tour could I?” She winks at James and he returns the gesture, such happiness in his face. She whispers close to my ear, “
My knees can't take much more!” Happy for you?

James grabs her around the waist and pulls her close, “we fancied a few days in the sun, and heard it was a family affair.”

He glances conspiratorially at Stan, he has engineered this little get together? He kisses Pete on the head, she’s clearly smitten by him, it’s great to see her happy. “Of course I didn’t realise just what kind of ‘family’ vacation it would turn out to be, Mum and Dad, blimey.”

Indeed.

“And your company having breakfast in there?” He nods his head to the living room, “there's something off about those two Tharie.”  Their uniforms aren't ironed, I’d have to agree.

"They found three undesirables wandering out in the dessert,” James tells us, “they've been looking for two of them for days regarding a theft of an artefact and a diary from an old lady's house,” old ladies eh? Don't these people draw a line?  “Picked them up, locked them up,” James tells us casually like this is just another day in paradise.  We go into the front room to join the guests, James continues his tale, “they told an incredible story about being kept prisoner and being tied up.” He laughs, sipping his whiskey.  You have no idea.

One of the officers takes over the story, “but we know Pearce's and we know that must be the lie so after we put them the jail we come to check on here.”  He eyes us leerily, and an uncomfortable atmosphere begins to bloom.  His broken accent easier to follow than my Spanish, “best cup of tea in region.” He salutes the room full of gawping faces with his cup, and saucer.  They chat in Spanish to each other under their breaths, Pete listens intently, her expression changing, she shoots a look at James, he picks up on her silent warning.  “Hey Mr Graham, Bab's, how you doin”? The older officer asks, clearly he watches too much American TV, like we all do.

"We're fine Carlos, just having the family over for the weekend." Says Graham and smiles a wide friendly smile as best he can.  Daniel has a smile like it, he uses it when he's trying to converse with someone fit for a straitjacket.

“Play ‘trivial pursuit’.” Barbara adds, “drink some wine, you know?” The atmosphere of a feeling of discomfort spreads through the air like smoke, we can all smell it now, my own heckles are up.  He stands and hands his cup to Pete with a lecherous wink, she puts it down immediately, she doesn’t clear up after anyone, including herself, she has a maid for that too.

”Well, storms brewin' so best getin' back to town,” says Carlos, clearly another fan of old cowboy movies his Spanish accent makes it sound funny, “come on boy, your turn to drive.” The boy looks instantly happy about that, clearly, he's not usually allowed behind the wheel, he's missed a button on his shirt, he really shouldn't be allowed to drive should he?  Grabbing his hat with sweat stained band, they head out, does nobody here bathe or do any laundry? They wave goodbye over their shoulders, Carlos lights a cigarette pausing briefly to shade the flame from the wind, glancing over his shoulder at the house behind him.    They get in the dirty car and they drive off in a puff of exhaust or badly burned oil.  It’s to do with the colour of the smoke, but I can’t recall...

“We're in trouble,” Pete says with a grim look on her face. I know that look, it's when someone's got the same shoes as her at a 'do'.

“Yes, let’s get out of here,” from Liza, she understood too of course, and she’s a serious as a travers form C to E into a counter canter...which if you don’t' know dressage, is serious, quite serious indeed.

Nigel has decided his glasses are already clean and don't need any further attention.  Graham looks over at Barbara nodding, “grab provisions everyone, we've got to get out of here.”

The wind outside is speeding rapidly and loose dry leaves and twigs are being tossed and swirled around. A hurricane?  Well used to packing our backpacks we go into survival mode, the tea is fresh so I fill flasks again. I grab fruit and bread, bottles of water, chocolate fingers and KitKats.  I share the weight by distributing the water between all of us, grab even more chocolate bars and stuff them in my pack.

“The weather, it will get worse?” Adds Liza, but it’s not the brewing storm she’s talking about. She motions to the fast retreating cloud of dust, “they’re expecting company” she says, and suddenly not moving away from us any-more, the cloud of rapidly increasing dust grows closer, they're coming.  As I look out of the front windows, a fast moving convoy of three trucks heads back our direction, surrounded by a swirling mass of disturbed dust.  Carlos and the boy in the lead vehicle, teeth exposed in an unfriendly expression, the binoculars in my hand, and now I’m suddenly hoping I’ve packed enough tea.

“They're back, come now!! Into the cave,” says Graham, Stan tosses him the spare gun from Emilio, fully loaded and checked of course, and Graham stuffs it into his waistband like it’s nothing unusual to handle a weapon.  I shudder, because this can only mean one thing, back down there…  Stan takes up the rear and shuts the kitchen door firmly behind us, the dim light fails to make connections with the mirrors to light the space “they don't know about this entrance I hope?” He asks.

“Where did they think we'd come from when we appeared just now, the garden?” I ask.  Bloody hell, I’m glad evil is also stupid, in this case.

“They didn’t ask, I didn’t say,” James answers, “we used to play together as kids round here, me and Carlos's son Bobby.” He's wafting Pete along gently with a firm hand on her back, “trying to find the legendary mine, we never did of course.” Said James, herding Pete into the basement, she'd be happier having a bikini wax, but we can't always have what we want can we?

“Shush,” hisses Stan, “they're in the house already.” Bloody hell again.

Quietly but quickly we make our way down the steps, once more my legs are still recovering from the climb up and feel a little weak.  Above us we can hear angry voices, furniture crashing about and a couple of shots fired. “They’re pissed off.” I whisper to Daniel.   He nods at me looking strangely amused, what am I whispering for?  They're making a racket up there.

“Just keep moving, they might be able to guess where we went.”  Stan caches us up a little out of breath, and answering an unspoken question for all of us.  He says “I was locking the metal bulkhead door.” Naturally.  “There's a slider on our side, like it was built to keep intruders out, I was just making sure it would.” Stan gathers his momentum and we travel down together.

“Clank!!!” We all hear it, metal on metal loud bash from above, “they found the door and they're trying to get through it.” Says Barbara, “it's a sturdy door, salvaged from the submarine 'Enterprise', it should keep them occupied for a while.” She seems amused by the story, expect it’s her way of coping, also she spins her lose diamond rings around her fingers in agitation.  Down, down we go, our torches still glowing strongly but were not sightseeing this time, we journey down with a purpose, to save ourselves. Gripping tightly to the stiff rope handrail where we can, it too is slippery from the damp and dripping water.

“Tharie?” Daniel grabs my arm and looks at me, “you OK?” His voice is tender and sincere.

“Too much to process to be scared Daniel, far too much noise.” I jab my head with my finger wincing, Daniel kisses me softly on the lips, we're holding up the entire line since we're in front,  but he either doesn’t notice or he doesn’t care. I instantly feel better, refreshed even like I’ve been given quick release energy, because his lips pure unrefined sugar in that single moment.

I am quiet, and taking his hand gratefully I lead him down, “come on, not far now.” I say.

And patting the flask sitting on the top of my bag, I continue on.

Bloody hell, did I say that already?

Chapter thirty-six, Tuesday
:
5thnovember2013 the journey

Unnoticed the first time, a rivulet of dripping water runs close to the side of the cavern we stand in, and disappears through the rock where it's cracked in the far corner.  It’s like a white noise and the theme tune to this section of our journey.   It gets in my head, it has a tone and rhythm, my headache is building.  I am gripping Daniels arm quite hard, I ask to stop for a drink, we rest a while and I sip noisily from my flask, trying to stem the source of the pain that’s building there.

“Headache babes?” Pete strokes my hair, it helps, I’m selfishly glad she’s here, of course I’d rather we were all at home sipping tea and safe from rampaging hoards of thugs, but you can't always have it your own way, can you?  Above and behind us we hear faint and muffled noises, the top of the stairs is alive with banging and shouting, it doesn’t help.  I drink greedily from my supply, they are still trying to get through.  Bang! I jump up and spin round, Daniel catches me in his arms, warm and tight around my frame, I feel safe.

He kisses my hair as he hums a tune, what is that? Placebo I think, I turn and kiss him gently on the lips, soft and inviting, suddenly I feel better, He knows what I need.  He whispers “thank you” to Pete, they’re working together to make me feel safe, I love them both for that. 

We hear several rounds of gunfire and a very loud scream, frustration or injury we neither know nor care.  “What do they want?” Nigel asks as if asking a class to solve a puzzle, then being slow to respond he answers himself.  “Of course, the gold, can there be that much left?” He is wiping his lenses on a hanky and holding them up in Liza's torchlight, repeating the process until he’s happy they are clean, returns them to his face, folds and stashes the cloth in his pocket.  Stan is checking his gun, Barbara and Graham are whispering together in the corner, Pete and James are holding hands and Liza and Kurt are kissing, tongues and all. It's disgusting. I like it.

“Gold?” I ask finally, “this is all about the gold?” I am perched on an uncomfortable rock I may not be able to achieve a perfect sitting trot in the next week if I remain here much longer. I fidget, but it doesn’t help, so I stand.

“Millions of dollars’ worth.” replies Graham drinking tea and joining the conversation, I get the feeling Daniels Father doesn’t say much. His wife does the talking, it was much the same in my own family home.

“We have left it to the villagers in our will, to build a community,” interrupts Barbara, She on the other hand, always seems to have lots to say.    “Schools, libraries, a hospital,” there’s no stopping her once she’s started either, that'll get tedious after a time.  “Waiting until Graham was dead, well…, we thought would dispel the myth that there was gold here at all.”  She opens her mouth to continue but Graham interrupts, perhaps to prevent her saying too much, I find that strange.

“But clearly they guessed.” Graham finished, looking furtively at his wife.

“Because your family started appearing, out of the blue, they assumed there was treasure here?” I offer.

“Doesn’t take much to assume that, no one ever comes here except Bab's and Stan.” Says Graham, too quickly to stop his words in time.

Stan, he knew.

“Stan?” Asked Daniel, “you knew all along?” He shakes his head in amusement, treachery in the ranks.  “You have been looking after me all these years and never once said anything Stan?” He points his KitKat at Stan, well, the man can only take so much and he cracks under the immense pressure Daniel has put him under.   KitKat torture, he’ll break sooner or later.  Daniel snaps the fingers apart as if to demonstrate that very point, and we all jump in the darkness of our confinement. Yes, anyone would break under that kind of action.

“OK, Daniel, it’s true,” gasps Stan “I wanted to tell you,” he is sorry it’s clear.  He looks at the end of the KitKat Daniel still points at him, tell us or else.  “Once I met Tharie,” I hear my name and hope my hip-flask isn't too buried in my bag.  “I knew your life would change Daniel,” he continues.   “You began smiling for the first time.”  Stan's tone is one of pride and protector, “you seemed to be interested in something other than work,” he cares for Daniel, and I feel better knowing this man is on our side.  Daniel just looks at him, and I notice Barbara looking at Daniel.  What is it? Jealousy? Yes. Likely wondering why he doesn't feel the same way about his Mother, I wonder why not?