The Tunnels of Tarcoola Page 15

  He still had the big iron key. Would there be time to get to the bomb shelter, grab a mask, unlock the door and get into the mine? Probably not, and anyway, he didn’t know any other way out from there either. Not enough data, he kept thinking as he pounded along. Need more input. As he rounded a bend he saw a flash of reflected light on the wall ahead. Someone was already on his heels.

  He had reached a junction that he knew well. The path to the right would take him to the house and the mine. The one to the left would take him to the caves in the cliff and the Doughnut. With no time for hesitation, he turned left.

  ‘IT’S a snake!’ said Kitty. ‘Nobody move!’

  Now the short man was really exasperated.

  ‘Git going!’ he yelled, his accent thickening in his exasperation. ‘You kuds thunk you can take the puss out of me just cause I’m a Kiwi!’ And he pushed Kitty roughly, making her stumble forward into Andrea. ‘Even I know there aren’t any snakes in the . . . ’

  The snake struck low and hard, biting the man just above the ankle. He screamed, dropped the gun and started hopping around on one foot.

  Andrea quickly kicked the gun into the undergrowth out of sight. The snake flexed and was gone. Martin stared after it, transfixed.

  ‘A narrow fellow in the grass occasionally rides,’ he said dreamily.

  DAVID could hear sounds behind him when he reached the end of the tunnel. Water was at his feet. He realised that he had no idea whether it was high tide or low tide, no idea how long the tunnel was, how far he had to go, how long it might take. His brain, which automatically calculated everything in sight, had nothing to work with. Insufficient data. No more inputs. But someone was coming up rapidly behind him, he could be certain of that. His whole life had come down to this moment, and no matter that his mouth was suddenly dry and his stomach was clenched with fear, there was only one thing he could do, and he had to do it now.

  KITTY was pulling at the man’s arm. ‘Stop that, stop that!’ she shouted. ‘You’re supposed to keep still. The poison works faster if you jump around!’

  ‘Come on,’ cried Andrea. ‘Leave him!’

  ‘Hey, we’ve got to help him,’ objected Kitty. ‘He’s been bitten by a snake! He’ll die!’

  The man screamed louder.

  ‘Kitty, a minute ago he was going to lock us up and—’

  ‘I know, I know, but we’ve got to help him.’

  ‘We’ve got to help David!’ said Martin.

  ‘I know . . . Let’s take him to Cec’s house. The back gate’s just through there. We can just yell out to Cec, and leave him in the back yard.’

  ‘You take him,’ said Andrea. ‘I’ve gotta go.’

  She fled up the path, through the garden and into the park. She reached the cliffs and clambered down, her feet slipping on loose rocks, almost falling in her haste. The tide was halfway out, water lapping all around the Doughnut and half-filling it. She squatted on a nearby rock and waited, her heart pounding.

  DAVID tucked the package securely into the front of his shirt and turned off his torch. He took a couple of deep breaths for practice, then filled his lungs.

  He swam from memory: a few strokes above the surface, a deep breath, then under. Swimming down and down in the black water, away from the air, was terrifying. A light flickered onto greenish rock as his pursuer reached the water’s edge. When it was gone the darkness was profound, but then he felt something scraping his knees and realised he had reached the lowest point and the tunnel was starting to rise. His heart soared, but the strain was starting to tell on his lungs, and he still had no idea how far it was.

  His chest was hurting. An eerie light shimmered around him but the tunnel seemed endless, and a little voice whispered that he might have taken a wrong turn somewhere. If he reached a dead end he would not be able to turn back.

  With the last of his strength he kicked his legs as hard as he could.

  ANDREA squatted on her rock. It was taking too long. She knew David would not have gone any other way. She refused to think about the tall man catching him down there. She stared at the Doughnut without blinking.

  Suddenly water erupted from the rock. A head shot up, then disappeared. A couple of seconds later David emerged, shakily pulling himself up, gasping, streaming water. Andrea was with him in a couple of strides, and by the time she had helped him out she was almost as wet as he was. They clambered up the cliff and lay on the grass at the top for a moment, panting.

  David took great, shuddering breaths, still unable to speak. He patted the bulge at his chest and nodded, to show her that the box was safe, and she jumped up and danced a little victory dance before sitting down again.

  They watched the Doughnut for a few minutes, but nobody emerged. The man would not have known that you could get out this way – he was probably searching the tunnel for other exits, wondering where David had gone.

  David looked back at Andrea. She was wet, dirty, smeared with coal dust from the tunnels, her hair was sticking out in all directions and she was smiling radiantly.

  When he got his breath back, he said, ‘Will you go out with me?’

  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.’

  AND
REA 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.