The Rings of Poseidon (30 page)

"You heard Steve's story," said Frank, "The
evidence backs it up."

"Yes," said Alicia soberly. "Talking of Steve
and the story, I wonder how the adventurers are getting on in
Spain."

"They're due back in Kirkwall tomorrow," said
Frank. "We'll just have to be patient 'till then. Well, I must
crack the whip and get them back to work," he added, and his head
disappeared back into the hole.

Just at that moment Alicia saw Steve waving,
Constable Breck beside him. She began to walk towards them, meeting
the policeman in mid-field, while Steve went back into the
cabin.

"Good day, ma'am," said the soft spoken
constable.

"Hello," replied Alicia. "What can I do for
you."

"I've had the report on Mr. Harrington. It
seems the autopsy showed nothing but the heart attack, so they're
arranging for the body to go straight back to Birmingham. I called
to say that you can pick up the car any time you like. It's in
Linksness."

"I'll get Steve, Mr. Benderman, to drive me
over this afternoon and pick it up then. You'll send the
Professor's personal belongings back with the body?"

"I should think so, though I haven't any
information about a family."

"I'm afraid I can't be any help at all in
that direction," said Alicia.

She wondered whether to ask about the ring or
whether to say nothing and let well alone. She decided on the
latter course, and asked, "Will you stay for some lunch?"

"Thank you. That's most hospitable of you,
but I'm expected home for lunch today. I'll have to ride along just
now, but I thought I'd let you know straight away."

The policeman mounted his bike and cycled
towards the gate, leaving with a wave. Alicia breathed a sigh of
relief - she had had no doubts that the death had been natural
causes, but there had still been room for awkward questions. She
glanced at her watch and decided there was just time enough to go
back to the excavations for a few minutes.

* * *

"The flight is early tomorrow morning," said
Manjy, "so we will be in a bit of a rush. If we took the car back
to the airport today we would have much more time."

"I suppose we could drop it off, come back to
Jerez to the hotel and go to the airport in a taxi," admitted Alan.
"I want to have time to look round the town a little. It looks an
interesting place."

"It would save a rush in the morning," Gill
agreed. "Let's do that." She got up to go.

"Not so hasty," said Alan, "it's twelve
fifteen now. The office will be shut by the time we get there. We
may as well wait until it opens at four o'clock. There's no rush.
Let's have something to eat. I noticed umbrellas and tables in the
square with the fountains."

* * *

The red estate fairly flew along the road
near Medina, speeding far above the limit and ignoring the 'no
overtaking' signs and road markers as no Spanish driver would have
done. The accident rate is high in Spain and Spanish drivers have
their faults, but ignoring a 'no overtaking' sign on a country road
is not usually one of them. Too many roads wind round totally blind
bends with sheer drops to the sea or a river below, for drivers not
to take warnings seriously. Instead Spanish cars tend to hang onto
the tail of the vehicle in front, driving dangerously close, until
there is a suitable spot to overtake. This kind of 'tailgating' has
its own potential dangers, of course, but they are lesser ones than
risky overtaking.

The bend itself was not that steep and the
drop to the river not that far, but the road dipped as well.
Overtaking the tractor on a fairly good road like that was not so
great a risk. Even ignoring the 'no overtaking' sign was not all
that risky - but there was an element of danger. The gravel truck
only hit the car a glancing blow: the road was three cars wide and
the accident only occurred at all because two of the vehicles were
wide commercial ones.

If the car had been travelling less fast it
would not have spun out of control, as it did. But it was moving
fast. Far above the speed limit. It hit the edge of the road
sideways on and turned completely over as it left the road. It
smashed sideways into a tree - the jolt broke Stella's neck - and
came to rest at a drunken angle in a field.

The tractor driver drove on and called the
police from a roadside bar a couple of miles away. The police took
a look at the wreckage and called an ambulance and a rescue
truck.

Stella had died instantly from the jolt as
the car impacted the tree but, surprisingly, the others escaped any
serious injury. Ian simply opened the door and stepped out.
Cornelius had to squeeze out, helped by Ian. It was impossible for
Ian and Cornelius to free Juliana and Stella was dead.

The whole top of the car had to be sawn away
and before the resuers could reach Juliana and, even then, she had
to be cut free. However, when she was finally pulled out of the
wreckage she showed no sign of injury, beyond a crushed leg which
was broken in several places and general cuts and bruises.

Both Ian and the ambulance crew were afraid
that there might have been internal injuries, especially as she
seemed to have been so crushed and trapped. In the end, Ian went
with her to hopital.

Cornelius went with the police to Medina
Sidonia.

* * *

Gill thought that the rings and knives would
be less obvious if they were spread around all three suitcases. It
was possible that the baggage would be x-rayed and, while a couple
of knives might be overlooked as souvenirs, five together was
another matter. "Put two in your case, Alan and one in yours,
Manjy."

"We need a taxi for 7.30 am," said the
latter, opening her case.

"We'll never be able to get anything to eat
in the hotel at that time," Alan warned.

"There was a cafe in the terminal," said
Gill, "We can get breakfast there."

The taxi to the airport took a split second
to arrive when called by phone next morning, and the whole day was
then a whirl of mixed impressions the reverse of those they
remembered coming to Spain - Jerez, Madrid, Heathrow terminals 3
and 4, Aberdeen and Kirkwall.

* * *

In Spain one has to have, as part of a car
insurance certificate, a 'bail bond'. That is to say that any
driver involved in any accident where there is damage to a third
party or injury to a person, is arrested until the case is
investigated by an examining magistrate. Unless one has a 'bail
bond' as a part of one's insurance, or a large cash bond is put up,
the party - apparently innocent or not - stays in jail until the
enquiry is over. Most modern UK insurance is valid for European
Union countries, so-called 'green cards' are becoming less
automatic than they once were. Fortunately Cornelius had one. Even
more fortunately it listed Spain as a valid country and therefore
included the bail bond.

When he eventually left the police station at
Medina Sidonia, Cornelius was minus the car. It was undrivable
anyway. Moreover, he couldn't hire another because he had left
behind all his documentation, including his driver's licence,
impounded by the police. It wasn't that officialdom was picking on
him, it is simply how things work in Spain.

Cornelius himself, however, was relatively
free. It had been necessary to give a local address, so he had
booked by phone into a hotel in the town, but he did not have to
stay there. After taking all the luggage to the place he hired a
taxi and had it drive him to twenty or so miles to the hospital to
consult Ian. He could hire a car.

* * *

It was raining in Kirkwall when Gill and the
others landed. When they crossed the Tarmac to the terminal
building they were surprised to see Steve.

"Ali let me bring the car across," he
explained. "It was raining and there was nothing else to do. Did
you get the rings?"

Gill kissed him first, then said, "Talk about
jet lag! I'm completely disorientated by all this flying. I hope
you're going to help me down to earth."

"Did you get them?" repeated Steve.

"Yes. They're in our bags, so your money's
well spent."

"Our money," he corrected.

"Our money," she agreed, and kissed him
again.

As they walked out to the car he said, "You
know, I had the craziest dream the other night."

"I know," said Gill, "but it wasn't exactly a
dream. I'll tell you what happened later, and then you can tell me
how your dream fitted in."

"How was Spain?" Steve asked the other two as
they climbed into the car.

"I enjoyed practising my Spanish," said Alan.
"It was interesting but tiring."

"Besides the work," said Manjy, "I had a
pleasant and intriguing few days. I'm glad I went and grateful to
you Steve for helping with the money."

"'You're welcome', as Frank would say," said
Steve, imitating his American accent.

After the meal that night, when the
volunteers had gone, Alicia sat herself at the table in a
businesslike way.

"Can you all come here for a moment," she
said "I want us to tackle the last remaining question."

"What's that?" asked Frank. He had been about
to get up to leave but settled himself back down.

"The question is, 'What do we do with the
rings now?'," answered Alicia

"Couldn't we just bury them somewhere?" asked
Alan.

"No," Alicia replied. "They might be found
sometime. That wouldn't be enough to keep them safe for all
time."

"Could Gill do the same ritual again in
reverse?" Manjy wondered out loud.

"Ask her," said Alicia.

"Well ... I think I could, but there are some
problems."

"Such as," Manjy wanted to know.

"The first problem is that the
professor-priest could easily get them back in some future lifetime
if he knew where to look. Or anyone else with wrongful intentions,
and I suppose there are plenty of those. The second problem is what
sort of a guardian I could leave. He must have been consumed by
malice to leave a guardian like that one - and I don't even hate
him!"

"For the first problem, you hide them
somewhere unlikely," said Frank.

"Where's unlikely?" asked Gill. "Don't think
I haven't considered the point. It's got to be quiet enough for me
to do the ritual, so he could perform it too. Then where wouldn't
he think of? In one of the houses here? He'd think of that. A stone
circle somewhere? Some other prehistoric or historic monument? I
rather think that an occult expert could probably find something on
the astral wherever you hid it."

Alicia was thoughtful. "The professor said he
was going to send the ring a few seconds forward in time," she
said.

"It wasn't so much forward in time as out of
time," corrected Gill.

"I know," said Alicia, "but couldn't you
actually send the rings back in time, so that they would get
further and further off. Eventually they might be impossibly far
off."

"I don't know," admitted Gill. "I'll read the
notes carefully and see if there's any clue as to how I might do
it. The question is still where."

"Ah," said Alicia, "The question presupposes
that we need to be able to find the place again. But that's not
actually true."

Manjy almost jumped up. She saw at once the
implications of this. "What you mean is, just go somewhere in the
middle of nowhere and do the ritual with nothing to mark the place
at all?"

"Right," said Alicia. "We won't be able to
find the spot again, but we won't need to. The point is, nobody
else will be able to find it either."

"We could certainly try that," said Gill,
"but I'm still worried about leaving the rings unguarded."

Steve had been hovering in the background
with a tea towel still in his hands. "Since you can't out hate an
evil person, can't you out love them?" he asked.

Everybody stopped short at that. "How d'you
mean?" asked Gill.

"Well," said Steve, "if you leave a guardian
which will stop an ill intentioned searcher with a stream of good
thoughts, the rings would be safe. You've nothing to fear from
anyone whose intentions are for the general good, have you?"

Gill thought about this. "No-o-o," she said
cautiously. "I suppose a stream of good thoughts and constructive
vibrations might stop an evil soul as much as malicious ones. But I
think I'd need you all to help, if it's even possible. I need to
think about it all."

"You mean we'd all have to follow you?" asked
Frank.

"I told you last night," said Gill, "The
ritual took us along the paths of the Tree of Life. That was an
uncanny enough experience, but I went onto the astral alone. This
time you'd all need to come with me."

"I'm not sure I believe in it," said
Frank.

"I don't think that really matters, so long
as you don't actively reject it," Gill told him. Frank didn't look
very convinced.

"Look," said Alicia, taking charge again,
"Three questions: Firstly, can Gill send the rings backwards in
time? Secondly, where do we do the ritual? And thirdly, can Gill
conjure up a 'good' guardian, as opposed to an evil one?"

"'Conjure up' is hardly the right
expression," said Gill, "but I take your point. With regard to the
question, the more I think about it, the more possible I think it
might be. As to the first question, I'd have to look into that, but
I think that's possible too. What we need to do is this: you all
discuss question two while I go away and think about one and
three."

She got up. "Come on Steve," she said.

Steve had more-or-less finished putting
things away, so he hung up the tea towel and followed her to the
door. She turned back a moment. "Here's another thought. Alicia's
been through a series of lives too and she was a priestess long
before me. I think there may well be enormous power amongst
us."