“Yes, the sea,” the Boss said, spitting a jet of green at him and wagging a finger. “Very dangerous. Too many sharks.”
Collingwood banged hard on the glass partition between the passenger compartment and the cockpit, but the pilot remained unperturbed, staring forward. He turned back to the Boss, holding on to the rail above the door, the downdraft ruffling his clothes. “Okay, let’s end this game. We’ve come far enough.”
“Yes, English. Far enough.” The pirate raised the rifle and fired a single round into Collingwood’s chest, the blood spraying out behind and whipping away in the wind. Collingwood seemed frozen in shock, unable to breathe, and then his legs collapsed and he fell away, tumbling round and round into darkness.
13
Jack followed Costas and Jeremy toward the main entrance of the nursing home, a red-brick Georgian mansion set in beautiful grounds in the rolling Herefordshire countryside, the Malvern Hills visible on the skyline to the east. It had taken them a full two hours to drive here from the Institute of Palaeography in Oxford, but it had been a chance to go over the Periplus of Hanno again and to scrutinize Jeremy’s translation of the golden plaque from the wreck. Jack’s excitement had been mounting during the drive, knowing that they were now on the trail of a story more remarkable than he could ever have imagined when he and Costas had glimpsed those symbols underwater less than a week before. The new evidence they had discovered for the voyages of Hanno and Himilco would rewrite the history of early exploration, and he could hardly hope for more. And yet they now knew from the pictogram and the two words beneath it that an even more extraordinary story lay behind those voyages, one that opened up the possibility of discovering what had really happened to one of the greatest lost treasures of antiquity.
For Jack, the biggest mystery now lay not in the ancient past, but in the darkest days of the Second World War. He had crossed his fingers as they had turned into the lane, hoping against hope that what they heard here today would provide the key to unlocking that mystery, an explanation for what he and Costas had found on the wreck of the Clan Macpherson and its link with the voyage of a Phoenician mariner and his astonishing cargo more than two and a half thousand years ago. He took a deep breath, remembering his phone conversation with the woman they were about to meet, and stepped through the entrance.
The receptionist took their names and pointed up the grand staircase to the first landing. “She’s expecting you. She’s been looking you up on the internet. You should expect a grilling from her. Jenny will take you up.”
They followed the nurse up the stairs and along the first-floor corridor, past doors on either side surrounded by food trolleys and medical gurneys. “Lunchtime,” the girl explained. “Louise has already had hers. She’s quite excited by this. Her family come over a lot, children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but when you get to her age, there aren’t many old friends left.”
“How is she?” Jack asked. “I mean, her health?”
“Up and down. She’s in her wheelchair today, with an IV. It’s important not to tire her. But her mind’s sharp as a tack. And you should be prepared,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “She really likes men.”
She led them through the open door of what had once been a grand bedroom, its wide windows looking out toward the Malverns. On one side was a bed, on the other a desk with a computer; the space in between was crammed with bookcases covered with artifacts and framed photographs. An old woman sat in a wheelchair looking out of the window, wearing a gaily colored skirt and a Norwegian sweater, an IV drip extending into her left wrist. The nurse stood aside and gestured toward the three men. “Louise, your guests are here. I’ll pop back in five minutes to see that everything’s all right.”
She left, and Louise turned. She had silver hair done in a 1940s fashion, and was still a beauty. She pressed a button on her armrest and the wheelchair advanced to the low coffee table in the center of the room. “You know, I’m nearly a hundred,” she said, flashing a smile. “All my old friends from boarding school have gone, and there can’t be that many left from my time at Cambridge either. There are still a few of us from the war, of course, old crocks like me by now. And yet sometimes,” she said, eyeing the three men, “I don’t feel a day over twenty-three.”
She spoke with the crisp accent of her era and background. Jack smiled, holding out his hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Jack Howard, and this is Dr. Costas Kazantzakis and Dr. Jeremy Haverstock, both Americans. They’re colleagues of mine.”
“Ah, Americans,” she said, shaking their hands in turn. “We had Americans at Bletchley, you know. They were so much more civilized than our chaps, at least to begin with, less desperate to get under our skirts. Not that I minded that, but so many of our chaps had been in the war before being assigned to Bletchley and were haunted by it, still expecting to be knocked off any minute. Those first Americans had a bit more time for romance. Are any of you gentlemen married?”
She looked inquiringly at Costas, who coughed. “Um, not yet, ma’am.”
“I’m Louise, not ma’am. And why not? You’d be a good catch for the right sort. I’ve looked you all up on the IMU website, you know. Some girl out there’s bound to go for that Hawaiian look. It happened for the German chap, despite his shorts, with his delightful Egyptian wife, and even for the one who looks as if he’s out of Star Trek… what’s his name?”
“That would be Lanowski, Dr. Jacob Lanowski,” Costas said.
“I think he’s lovely. Well?”
Costas looked rueful. “Never seems to last beyond the beach. Where I have my holidays, that is. Romance and the engineering lab don’t mix too well, I find. Too much grease and oil.”
“Never stopped me at Bletchley. I was covered in it from operating the wretched bombe. You should try harder.”
Costas coughed again, glancing at Jack. “Yes, ma’am. I mean Louise.”
“And you, young man?” She turned to Jeremy.
“Not yet either,” he said. “Well, I’ve got a girlfriend. Actually, it’s Jack’s daughter Rebecca. We might be engaged.”
“Engaged,” Jack exclaimed. “First I’ve heard of it.”
Costas turned to him. “Might be engaged?”
Jeremy pushed up his glasses, looking uncomfortable. “Well, it’s a little tricky. It’s kind of hard pinning her down.”
“That’s because nobody pins my daughter down,” Jack said. “She’s a Howard.”
“Nobody pins you down either, it seems,” said Louise, looking at Jack. “I’ve read two of your books on your underwater adventures. They’re over there, on the table. Costas is in them a lot, and so is Jeremy, and Maurice and Aysha and that lovely Star Trek man. But in one book there are quite a few pictures with one woman, and in the other book another woman. One looks central Asian, the other Spanish. Katya and Maria.”
Jack scratched his chin. “That’s a bit tricky to explain, too.”
“No, it’s not. You’re dithering. You need to make your mind up. A girl likes to be chosen.”
Jack nodded. “Yes, she does. Damn right.”
“Okay.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement, and she gestured at the three chairs that had been placed on the other side of the table. “Now that we’ve got that sorted out, let’s get down to business. How can I help you?”