Trailing behind the entire group who were now all talking at once into Kittiwake, he was immediately struck by the change to the place. Ben was staring around in wonder as well. There were things pinned up on the wall around the fireplace; Harry’s picnic table had been brought from its place outside his shed and was now in the centre of the floor, the sofa, covered in books, was pushed back to make room. On this table sat a number of strange objects. Strange except for one—that one Aleksey recognised quite well. If he’d missed its significance, Radulf would have reminded him, for the old dog went immediately to the table, levered himself up and gleefully retrieved his favourite Christmas foot.
* * *
Chapter Five
Aleksey could tell that Tim Watson was just as fascinated by the new interior decoration of Kittiwake as he was, but the smaller man apparently wanted to pursue his martyred-boyfriend act and milk it for all it was worth before he could give this bizarre situation his full attention. His frantic struggling could have been just an attempt to breathe, but Squeezy took him outside to privacy just in case—literally: he improved his hold around the professor’s neck, lifted him and bodily removed him.
Harry, pretending not to watch this rough handling was instead studying the two of them. He pursed his lips, sniffed suspiciously, nodded as if confirming something that needed no confirmation whatsoever, and commented dryly, ‘Bit of a blow tonight. Heavy swells.’ Aleksey could have sworn Ben began to sway again. Maybe it was his own dubiously challenged balance that was making Ben wobbly. He swung around to the kitchen units that lined the side wall and bent to drink from the tap. Ben pushed him to one side and did the same. Turning, Aleksey regarded the old man who was attempting to swap Radulf’s prize for a dog treat, so he could place the old shoe back on the table with all the other items.
Aleksey glanced at Ben for a moment then asked Harry with a slight edge to his voice, ‘What’s going on? What is all this?’
‘Shall we wait for?—ah, well, right you are. We’ll start without them and they can catch up. Michael knows it all, of course. You see, your Christmas gift wasn’t actually the first thing that whiskery old chap found. He’s been bringingmepresents, or I should be more accurate and say bringing them to Snodders, for quite a—’
‘Radulf? You mean Radulf?’
‘Indeed I do. What a fine beachcomber and scavenger he is. Odd bits and bobs. Nothing of value when seen on their own, but they began to tell a bit of a tale. I showed them to Michael—fine brain that lad of mine’s got.’ He apparently saw something in their reception of this assertion that made him add with a fond smile, ‘He says he keeps it in stealth mode—need-to-know basis. Quite right, too. Best way for a chap to be—keep your powder dry. Ah, here he is now.’
Squeezy backed open the door and came in carrying a stack of chairs which he’d liberated from Guillemot. He and Ben put them around the table, and Aleksey sank gratefully into one, Ben alongside him. ‘Where’s Tim?’ Ben looked slightly anxious as he asked this, glancing out into the night, an expression not improved when Squeezy smirked and tapped the side of his nose, not replying.
‘Why did you lie to him? Why not just tell him you were here? He would have—’
‘—come too. That’s what he’d ‘ave done—he’d have trailed along.’
Ben clenched his jaw.
Aleksey pointed out mildly, ‘Maybe that is because he actually likes you.’
Squeezy grinned widely. ‘Oh, I know he likes me. But he’s a dark horse, see—all those terrorists he knows. Gotta keep him…’ He wobbled his hand. ‘Off-balance and guessing when it comes to important operational planning.’
Ben was looking between them and suddenly barked a laugh. ‘Oh, my, God. You’re just like Nik: bored and poking! I recognise the signs! It must be catching.’ He put on a look of mock horror which Aleksey was at pains to ignore in case he started laughing as well, and asked theatrically, ‘Have you fuckwits been…communingtogether?’
The moron tipped his head to one side. ‘Canoodling? Don’t you mean canoodling? Lots of things you can catch doing that, my son. Communing, though, that’s best done in church—as you would know…being the Biblical scholar you are...’ Before Ben could launch an assault for this jibe, Squeezy added pointedly, ‘The professor should be here in five, four, three, two…’ He rose and held the door open as Tim appeared in the glow outside the glass, carrying a large platter heaped with food steaming in the cold night air. ‘One.’
* * *
It seemed to Aleksey then that a great sense of calm settled on them all. It could have just been created by the sausages and burgers that the moron and Harry had been grilling for their own supper and which they were now all happily partaking of. But he knew it was more than the obvious and rather prosaic improvements brought about by finally eating something. They were all together again. And whatever the moron had said to placate his boyfriend, it seemed to have worked. Although he tried never to admit that the annoying one had either feelings or a brain, he could not help but wonder whether the whole incident had been contrived to test the professor’s commitment. As in his relationship with Ben, Timothy Watson and Michael Heathcote also preferred to keep their true feelings private. In public, they bickered and fought and criticised each other more as furious siblings than two men supposedly in love might behave. But bring in the new focus, the new obsession that one of them had, and Aleksey reckoned the moronic one had just been jealous. And, not getting the attention he might believe was owed him, rather like a certain six-year-oldhe’donce known, Michael Heathcote had kicked off. All these thoughts flittered across his mind as he tried to keep Ben away from his share of the food, and won—a first for both of them. Feeling very mellow now with life in general, he repeated his question to Harry.
‘So, what is this about?’
Plates were cleared, chairs pulled to the table, Harry fetched a large leather satchel from the couch and tucked it safely by his feet. In adjusting the light so they could all see the objects laid out more clearly, a pool of illumination was created just on the five of them as the rest of the room faded into deep shadow. Harry, carefully wiping his fingers on his handkerchief, admitted, ‘I am not sure where the best place is to start on this tale, son.’
‘The beginning?’
‘Yes, but where is that? For me, it was becoming Captain of Dartmouth. For Michael, it was some months ago when I showed him the first of our big lad’s offerings.’
Aleksey flicked his gaze to the moron. ‘You’ve known about this for months?’
Squeezy retorted, unfazed apparently by the edge clear in his voice, ‘About what? That horrible hound of yours has a bit of a habit of finding disgusting objects and either fucking eating ‘em or stowing ‘em away in odd places. Hello? Dead seagull discovered under his blanket? The suspicious bleeding number of orange tree rats on this island suddenly taken to practising hari-kari? What did ya think was happening to those little buggers? So, yeah, he turned up with all this crap.’ He waved vaguely at the tabletop. ‘It was Dad who kept it all and started to see a pattern.’
It was the first time the moron had used this term to refer to Harry, and it landed well, the intimate grouping bound by the soft illumination inviting such a clear cessation of earlier hostilities. Aleksey was beginning to wonder if this thorn in his side ever did anything accidentally. He turned his attention back to the older man. ‘So, the story?’
Harry had been gazing at the various items spread out before him, which as far as Aleksey could see consisted of little more than scraps of rubbish and driftwood. ‘Well then, perhaps I should just start, and we will see where this story takes us. Like life—we have little choice but to just go along. Maybe the beginning was many hundreds of years ago in a great fire—a true bonfire of the vanities. This burning took place in a market square many thousands of miles away. It would have been a remarkable sight in any way of looking at it, for not only was a great treasure hoard destroyed, but a man was burnt alive too. But this was a fire of greater significance than even the Christian who lit it could have known, for it really signalled the end of one great empire and the beginning of another. The Christian wasJuan de Zumárraga, Bishop of Mexico, and the man he burnt wasOmetochtzin, the last Emperor of the Aztecs.’
At the mention of this final word, all eyes focused on the detritus of the sea which lay before them. Aleksey picked up one fragment, of what he had assumed was a piece of theAppaloosa, and examined it more carefully. A small carved wooden statue did not seem all that likely a decoration for a Russian billionaire’s super yacht. ‘So, I suppose this isn’t the beginning at all but the end, in a way.’ Harry was watching him as he held the strange little object.
‘As you all know, once the Spanish landed in the New World, that way of life was doomed. War, disease and baptism. By 1530, when our good bishop lit that bonfire, there wasn’t much left of an empire that had ruled its lands for hundreds of years. But again, beginnings or endings? The Aztecs conquered those territories from a far older and more mysterious peoples, the Toltecs—an even greater civilisation that appears to have been relatively peaceful, compared to those which came later. When Cortez arrived on the continent in the 1500s, he reckoned at least a quarter of a million people a year were being sacrificed to the great Aztec sun god. He went to one such ceremony where the victims were skinned, and the priests donned the flayed skins and then ran around the city for hours in them.’ Perhaps sensing that someone in his audience wasn’t taking these tales with an equal level of enthusiasm as the others, he murmured towards Tim, ‘This all becomes relevant later when we get to the end—or our beginning.’
Tim nodded as if he understood any of this, but as Squeezy had his arm casually resting around his boyfriend’s shoulders and was idly and proprietarily flicking at the collar of his shirt, the professor didn’t seem bothered about anything. Aleksey smiled privately when the fingers on his thigh increased their pressure once more.
