The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation Page 10

  As he rested against the railing, the cold material bracing against his hands, he saw Valeria heading along the beach towards one of the boats. He saw her climb aboard a slick white vessel, its appearance like that of a miniature yacht.

  He walked towards it before stopping, realising he had no chance of catching her. Instead, he watched from the end of the walkway as the small craft kicked up the waves and turned left, circling the island and heading towards the island of St Agnes.

  *

  The Old Man’s Foot was one of the oldest houses on St Agnes. So named because of its bizarre shape, a long body with a large tower at the far end, it had become an iconic part of Scillonian folklore.

  Originally the tower had been the lighthouse. Dating back to the 1500s, its initial purpose had been carried out through the burning of coals, whereas in its heyday that had been replaced by an Argand lamp. For over two hundred years, the structure had been the heart of the island. The fulcrum of the local shipping industry.

  Today, it served a different purpose. Following the establishment of the new lighthouse on St Mary’s in the early 1900s, the Foot became redundant and fell into disrepair. Over the following fifty years, it developed a reputation for being haunted; some said the most haunted building on the island. In the 1970s the windows of the house had been boarded up, the chimney destroyed by gales. By the ’80s, the whitewashed façade had become covered in soot, the roof on the verge of caving in.

  Then its saviour came.

  Elena Valeria Flores had been born Elena Valeria Sanchez in a small town near Mérida, one of the smallest cities in Spain. Her father had been a Spaniard, the son of a renowned farmer and, once upon a time, a famed classical guitarist; her mother, on the other hand, was born in Mexico, a fiery Latino woman of dark hair and excellent courage. Her father had fought in the Spanish Civil War and later for the French against the Nazis. When the Axis collapsed, he returned to Spain and set up a business in construction.

  The expertise was passed on.

  Elena married at twenty and had two children: a boy who died in his twenties, and a girl who mirrored her in both attitude and appearance. Like her mother, the girl went on to have two children: two girls, again destined to possess the hereditary family traits. One lived in Madrid as a dancer.

  The other worked on St Mary’s as a waitress.

  Elena was already living on St Mary’s when her granddaughter decided to make it her home. Buoyed by stories of lost Spanish gold, Valeria became enthralled. A two-week holiday developed into four, and what started as a part-time job in a local inn became a new life. Elena’s vision to move out of her two-bedroom terrace in Hugh Town and restore the Old Man’s Foot to its former glory soon became a labour of love. Two years after Valeria’s arrival, it reopened; the lighthouse as a tourist attraction, the house as a home.

  It was after 9 p.m. when Valeria returned. Entering to the familiar sounds of the key catching on the latch and the door creaking open, she walked along a corridor cloaked in darkness, save for a dim glow at the far end.

  The light was from the lounge, a roaring log fire that burned within the original fireplace. Three black armchairs had been placed around the coffee table, the far right of which was occupied. An elderly woman sat asleep, her shoulder-length grey hair resting against the armrest. The woman snored, the sound restricted by her right hand that was unintentionally holding on to the woolly blanket that was slowly falling.

  Valeria smiled at her grandmother as she replaced the loose blanket over her shoulders. The woman spoke in Spanish, despite her eyes being closed.

  Valeria had witnessed the sight a thousand times, perhaps even more.

  “Buenas noches, Abuela.” She kissed her grandmother on the cheek.

  Valeria poured herself a sherry and took it up to her bedroom. She placed it down on the coaster on the bedside table and carefully picked up the book lying next to it. The exterior was worn, appearing far older than the 1940s’ dating of the contents that had been handwritten in English. Over the last seven years she had read many, this the latest of a long line.

  She turned to the most recent page and immediately began to read.

  *

  At around 10 p.m. the night manager of the Gibbous Moon was on hand to witness the arrival of a new guest. A visit from a fellow black was no longer unheard of on the island, but such occurrences were still fairly rare.

  The arrival of this man, though, was less unexpected.

  “Mr Colts,” Danny said, smiling warmly, a key in his hand. “I have your usual room for you.”

  Colts walked slowly towards the front desk, his footsteps creaking, his breathing heavy. As usual, a black leather hat covered a receding hairline that was predominantly grey with hints of natural curly black that matched the colour of his beard. An unlit pipe occupied the gap between his lips, accompanied by the customary smell of tobacco.

  He removed the pipe and smiled.

  “Much obliged.” He tipped his hat and moved slowly up the stairs.

  *

  In his new room on the first floor, Ben was oblivious to the sound of footsteps on the nearby stairs. Tired, drained, slightly cold, he took a seat at the end of the bed and persevered with his efforts to read TF’s diary.

  The settlers’ graves were nowhere to be seen; he had checked every inch of the churchyard. According to TF, the graves were on the south side, away from the church itself.

  It wasn’t until he had read the entries in detail he realised why he had missed them. Chris was wrong. It wasn’t Old Town Church they needed. The church was on St Lide’s.

  St Lide’s, he thought.

  He didn’t remember seeing anything there himself.

  He concentrated on the pages regarding the tombstones. The diagrams were crude, at least by modern standards, but he trusted TF’s credibility. The man was an acknowledged expert in his field and not prone to flights of fancy.

  Ben knew the man wouldn’t have included something that wasn’t correct.

  TF had returned to the Gibbous Moon in March 1905, almost fourteen months after his first visit. He had visited the graves again soon after his arrival and, apparently, hit a brick wall. He had been on St Mary’s for over a week before he finally made the breakthrough.

  The galleon.

  TF had found evidence of the shipwreck himself, aided by one other, a man named Slater, a gravedigger from the church. The vessel was found off Bartholomew Ledge, a stretch of water located between St Mary’s and St Agnes. The wreck was deemed to be Spanish, a deduction based on a combination of evidence gleaned from a superficial excavation and TF’s willingness to trust local folklore.

  Ben yawned. He had never been one for suffering jet lag, but the time difference was starting to catch up with him. Leaving his seat, he made himself a coffee using the room’s kettle and the sachets of instant stuff, added two sugars and took it black.

  Horrible!

  Heading towards the desk, he moved the mouse of his MacBook to interrupt the screensaver and entered a search into Google. If TF had discovered evidence of a Spanish galleon nearby, he knew the chances were it would have been studied since.

  Immediately he saw results. A shipwreck had been found in the area TF had described. The Bartholomew Ledge wreck was protected by the Protection of Wrecks Act and had been partially excavated in the 1980s and beyond. He read everything TF mentioned about the wreck in the diary and compared it to what he found on the Internet.

  Immediately he became confused. According to the Internet, the wreck had been discovered in the late 1970s.

  Seventy years after TF had visited the Isles of Scilly.

  Ben was feeling excited again, a familiar feeling he not only loved but craved. He continued through the subsequent pages, concentrating on TF’s deductions. TF had believed the wreck to be Spanish and the graves on St Lide’s those of the sailors.

  What happened to them and their treasures was another matter.

  TF spoke about the wreck for over t
hree pages before describing visits to Tresco, St Agnes and St Mary’s. Suddenly something caught Ben’s eye. There were more diagrams, a churchyard but not the one on St Lide’s. He recognised it from his earlier visit. TF had made diagrams of a large structure at Old Town Church: a mausoleum with four pillars at the front, belonging to that of the Godolphin and Osborne families.

  TF had also become interested in the Godolphin Mausoleum, but better still, there were other things included in the diary. As Ben had remembered, the family crest was included near the door: a double-headed eagle surrounded by a knight’s armour; he also remembered two stone statues of knights in armour flanking the doorway. On the next page TF had included another diagram, also a coat of arms, this time with the name Cortés. There were patterns on it, the colour predominantly maroon. Ben noted certain similarities between the two.

  Most notably the two-headed eagle.

  Ben was now seriously confused. Though he recognised the image, he knew it should not have been there. Ten years specialising in European history had taught him the coat of arms of Hernán Cortés had only been rediscovered within the last twenty years.

  Again, TF seemed to have possessed knowledge others did not.

  The next few pages concerned a second trip to St Lide’s, during which TF made further diagrams of the wider landscape. Ben closed the diary and started browsing the Internet, searching for images of St Lide’s and the surrounding islands.

  Thanks to a day of sightseeing, he was starting to recognise things.

  He concentrated on Hell’s Bay, photos taken both at low and high tide. The six caves had clearly been TF’s main source of fascination. Apparently there were wall markings on some, both natural and deliberate. Academic consensus viewed them as prehistoric.

  Ben had no way of dating them from the photos or diagrams alone.

  The next landmark was the nearby ruined castle overlooking the Atlantic to the south. The walls were rugged and decrepit, like something out of an historical romance novel. He smiled, once again recalling the legend of Lyonesse, the land lost beneath the waves. He had heard a story that the locals were obsessed with it: that on stormy nights the bells of 140 churches could be heard to ring, their ghostly chimes audible even from beneath the waves. There was a sense of romanticism about the place that he found irresistibly charming.

  Silently, he wondered whether TF had been influenced by the tale.

  TF had visited the castle and before that the three standing stones. He had documented things specifically: the scenery, plant life, not the usual daffodils but cacti, things unique to that part of the island. Ben remembered seeing something about the standing stones on the map in Kernow’s boathouse, and then again from a distance in real life. Apparently they were the oldest things on the island.

  Questions remained over their exact purpose.

  He read the next six pages of the diary, taking in as much as his tired mind would allow. Even two weeks prior to his death, TF had been interested in the caves.

  And then out of nowhere we found it, located within the unknown cave. The entrance, having been previously restricted when the tide was at its highest, now appeared before us like an open doorway.

  Discussing the find with the most learned of my companions, I was persuaded we only had one chance in twenty-four hours to make our entrance, after which time we would be deprived until the same time the following evening. In any case, patience would need to be a virtue. After our entry, it would be necessary for twenty-four hours to pass in order for us to come out the same way. Unless, with great fortune, we should find something hidden within the castle itself.

  Ben bit his lip, trying to make sense of it all. Based on the diary entry, TF had found a previously undiscovered cave and become convinced it led to a tunnel somewhere, apparently connecting to an area beneath the castle. Looking up its history on the Internet, Ben discovered the castle had been built by the Cavaliers and later abandoned on the orders of its owner, the Godolphin family. His searches yielded no reference to a tunnel between the caves and the castle. He had seen the caves himself.

  He’d counted six caves, not seven.

  A series of thoughts entered his mind. Was it possible TF had discovered one that others had missed? Had later storms altered the geography?

  He turned again to the beginning of the diary, the page with the diagrams of the tombstones. The only grave that included a name was the one with the Aztec symbols and the name Pizarro, which Ben knew might, or might not, be significant. It was true that at least five Pizarros had been involved in the exploration of the New World, but it didn’t necessarily mean they had any link to the grave. The evidence of history suggested otherwise.

  Ben knew exactly where they were supposed to be buried.

  Yet there was one other thing that couldn’t be denied. The symbol on the final grave appeared to be a feathered serpent; he had seen the type many times before. Had his education been different, it might have made little sense. If TF’s diagram was accurate, the image was of Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec god for whom Montezuma allegedly mistook Cortés, as if an ancient prophecy was being fulfilled. Ben knew the evidence was debatable.

  He no longer doubted TF had found something intriguing.

  The question was, what was it doing on a gravestone in the Isles of Scilly?

  The Second Day

  12

  7 a.m.

  The helicopter was flying at approximately 2,000 feet as it passed over Hell’s Bay. The weather was calm, the cloud scattered, the sea almost a millpond. A gentle tide lapped on to the shingle beach that separated the water from the six caves. As the light continued to become brighter beyond the distant horizon, the pale moon disappearing into the light blue sky, the waves weakened further still, their dying flow overwhelmed by the shrill cries of the gulls.

  The bay itself was equally quiet. Marine life aside, the caves were deserted, as were the nearby hills. There was no remaining evidence of the crashed ancient schooner amongst the rocks as had been reported a week before, no debris of a battered stern, no dead captain at the helm. The only sign of life was the moving shadow belonging to the helicopter.

  The evidence confirmed the reports that the island was no longer inhabited.

  Cortés looked out of the window, his attention on the bay. He looked at one area in particular, comparing it to what he saw in the four-hundred-year-old manuscript.

  Alongside him, Fernando Pizarro sat with his elbow against the glass, his hand supporting his unshaven chin. Suddenly he saw what Cortés was seeing.

  “There.” He pointed to the three large standing stones situated among the hills on the north-east side of the island.

  Cortés nodded. “Take us nearer.”

  The helicopter completed its pass, now heading directly across the widest part of the island. The area below was mainly green, field and woodland, with no sign of modern civilisation. Cortés focused on the greenery, comparing what he saw to the map in the manuscript. The author had taken the step of dividing the horseshoe-shaped island into four equal sections. The so-called Queen’s Castle didn’t exist back then; allegedly the island was not even inhabited at the time. A large void also existed where New Town later stood, the natural coastal landscape a mixture of either shingle beach or barren cliff face. The map suggested the castle site had once been home to another older structure, possibly another fort or something similar.

  Again Cortés focused on the three standing stones, each so wide they appeared almost like small buildings. Each stone was a pale grey, almost white, and stood up to heights of twenty feet.

  Each one was marked on the map.

  As was their purpose.

  “Let’s take her down here.”

  13

  9:30 a.m.

  Ben was up by the time the rain started. According to the forecast, the shower was only expected to be a light one. The rain came at just after 8 a.m.; he noted the time as it obscured his view from the dining room as he munched on his toast and ce
real. He had never been one for greasy fry-ups – it was a different culture to back home. Nevertheless, he hated rain even more.

  The weather also differed from back home.

  He saw the waitress again, smiling at him as she passed. He didn’t remember her name; he recalled it was something Spanish, beginning with V, like Victoria, but not Victoria.

  He saw her looking at him again, this time touching her hair as she did so. There was a certain coyness to her, perhaps playfulness. Being the GM’s only female employee, she was used to attention, he guessed, but, then again, the place was hardly heaving. In another time and place he knew he might have acted on it.

  Today, he had other things on his mind.

  His plan for the day was to meet Dr Phillips, a retired history lecturer from the University of Keele who spent her semi-retirement as curator of the Museum of the Isles of Scilly.

  As planned, she had got wind of his arrival and wanted to meet him.

  He left the dining room through the lobby entrance and headed towards the front door. As he passed, someone called.

  “Mr Malone.” The voice belonged to Valeria. “I have a message for you.”

  *

  The message was from Kernow, saying it was urgent.

  Ben had no idea what it would be about.

  Predictably, Chris was still asleep. After banging heavily on his door, finally persuading him to part with his covers, Ben told him about his appointments with Kernow and the curator, and about the latest finds in the diary.

  “Wait ten minutes. I’ll come with you.”

  Ben didn’t like the sound of that. The meeting with the academic was something he wanted to do alone.