Gabriel punched in a number he remembered well from his last time here and was relieved to hear a woman’s voice answer on the third ring. “’Allo,” she said, a hint of a French accent surviving the transit through the cheap loudspeaker.
“Dayani, this is Gabriel Hunt,” Gabriel said.
“Gabriel! My goodness. How are you? Are you thinking of coming back to our island for a visit sometime?”
“Actually, I’m in Kurunegala,” he said, “right now. How would you feel about dropping everything you’re doing and driving out here to pick me up?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “I’m not sure my coworkers will like it so much, but I would feel just fine about it. Want to wait for me by the clock tower? I can be there in forty minutes.”
“I wish we could,” he said, thinking about his ankle. Taped up, it did hurt less, but it still hurt, and waiting would feel better than walking. “But we can’t. We’re going to start walking along the A6; just look for us on the side of the road.”
“Are you in some sort of trouble, Gabriel?”
“Some sort,” he said.
“Naturellement,” she said. “I’m leaving now.” And the connection broke.
Gabriel handed the phone back to the stationmaster.
“You…go to Dambulla?” the young man said. Gabriel nodded. “You go quick. Quick? Understand? Before rains come.”
“Rains,” Gabriel said.
The man squinted, searching for a word. “Later, big rains,” he said. Then his face relaxed. He knew the word he wanted.
“Monsoon,” he said.
Chapter 22
“This woman who’s picking us up,” Sheba said, and Gabriel said, “Dayani.”
“Who is she?”
They were walking along the side of the highway separating Kurunegala from Dambulla, a long, straight stretch of asphalt that cut like a knife blade through the heavy jungle cover that began in earnest just outside the town. Less than a mile from the train station, you couldn’t see anything in any direction but leaves and vines and trunks and undergrowth. That, and the occasional animal passing in your peripheral vision, the occasional car zooming past on the road.
“She’s a translator,” Gabriel said. “Spent ten years working for UNESCO out of Paris—that’s where I met her. She transferred back here a year or so ago to work on a set of documents discovered at the Golden Temple.”
“And you came for a visit to…assist her with the translation.”
“She called me to see if I’d help out when one of the Temple’s statues was stolen.”
“I see.”
“I got the statue back.”
Sheba nodded.
“What?” Gabriel said.
“Nothing,” Sheba said. “I was just thinking how strangely specific a man’s tastes can be. Some men have a thing for feet. You seem to have a thing for linguists.”
Gabriel smiled. “What can I say? I like smart women.”
She patted him on the shoulder. “And apparently we like you.”
The jungle thinned and was replaced by farmland, tidily cultivated fields stretching for miles on either side of the road. With the sky visible again Gabriel saw clouds massing heavily overhead, moving swiftly as the wind picked up. The sun was dropping and the undersides of the clouds were stained with shadow, dark russet streaks that made them look lower than they were.
When the first drops fell, it was almost a relief, cutting the heat and releasing some of the humidity. But drops were soon replaced by sheets of water pounding into the ground, a torrent that would have resembled a flash flood if Gabriel hadn’t known it was likely to continue unabated for the next five hours. He was soaked through in an instant; Sheba, too, though her jacket at least had a hood that she was able to put up. Of all the supplies they’d taken off the plane, some of which he was carrying strapped to his belt, some worn over his shoulders like a backpack under his leather jacket, some in a satchel slung over Sheba’s shoulder, none was an umbrella. And there had been one, too. He kicked himself for not taking it.
Instead, he took out a safety blinker from Sheba’s bag, activated it, and clipped it to one of the bag’s straps. It was a square plastic box that flashed a bright red light every three seconds. Even with visibility cut by the downpour, Gabriel figured it should be enough to keep strange cars from hitting them—and Dayani from missing them.
It also attracted notice from other drivers. One car pulled up alongside them and cracked the window, the driver asking in a shout whether they needed help, first in Sinhala and then in halting English.
The temptation to accept his offer was great—but they couldn’t get any wetter at this point, and since they’d been walking almost half an hour now, Dayani should be driving by any minute.
“Thanks, no,” Gabriel shouted back. “Someone’s picking us up.” He had to shout it again to make himself heard. The driver shrugged, rolled his window up and drove off.
“You’re sure your friend’s coming?” Sheba asked, leaning close to his ear.
Gabriel nodded.
“I hope so,” she said, pulling her jacket tightly around her, for what little good that did.
A moment later Gabriel pointed at a shape looming out of the gray wall of water before them. “Here she is.” He pulled a road flare from his belt and activated it, waving it overhead till Dayani’s white Indica pulled to a halt. They piled into the backseat and slammed the door shut behind them. Water ran off them, soaking the mats on the floor. They were both breathing heavily, as if they’d just come from running a footrace.
The woman in the driver’s seat turned to face them, a towel in one hand. “Here, you can use this.” She looked from Gabriel to Sheba and back again. “I only brought one.”
“That’s okay,” Gabriel said. And to Sheba: “You use it.”
“And this is…?” Dayani said.
“A friend of mine,” Gabriel said. “Sheba McCoy. She’s a linguist.”
Dayani’s eyebrows rose. “Oh, is she?”
Sheba snatched the towel out of Dayani’s hand and began drying her face and hair, which had gotten drenched in spite of the hood.
“Thank you for picking us up,” Gabriel said. He took one of Dayani’s hands, squeezed it and, leaning forward, kissed her on the cheek.
“Pas de problème,” Dayani said. “Want to tell me what’s got you in such a hurry that you’d walk through a monsoon to get there?”
“I found a map,” Gabriel said, sitting back as Dayani made a U-turn and got underway again. “Partly in Egypt and partly in Greece. It pointed here.”
“Here to Sri Lanka? Here to Kurunegala? To Dambulla?”
“To a spot maybe ten miles northeast of Dambulla,” Gabriel said. “Give or take. Do you have any idea what might be there?”
“Of course,” Dayani said. In the rearview mirror, Gabriel saw her dark brown eyes narrow. “Ten miles northeast, that’s where Sigiriya is.”
The name rang only the faintest of bells. “Sigiriya?”
“It’s an ancient rock fortress in the middle of the jungle,” Dayani said. “The locals sometimes call it Lion Rock.”
“A man named John Still discovered it in 1907,” Dayani said, speaking slowly, her attention focused on the road. “Not the rock itself, of course—that’s never been a secret. A 370-meter volcanic rock towering over the surrounding tree line, you’re not going to lose track of that. What Still discovered were the ruins on top of the rock, and the remains of some artwork on the way up—paintings, mostly.”