The Cortés Trilogy: Enigma Revenge Revelation Read online

  “So tell me more about yourself.”

  10:30 a.m.

  According to Kernow, St Lide’s was one of six islands that were technically inhabited. Measuring an area of 2.2 square kilometres and with a population of two coastguards, it was officially the fourth largest of the islands in area and sixth in permanent residents.

  According to tradition, the island was the first of the Scillies to be inhabited. As the Stone Age progressed, the island provided a sustainable existence for a community of farmers and fishermen that continued for over 20,000 years. As the centuries passed and the early inhabitants died out, it was visited by a Christian missionary named St Lide on his way to Cornwall from France. Legend had it St Lide became stranded on the island and only escaped after constructing a small raft two years later. After completing his mission of preaching Christianity in Cornwall and Wales, he decided to return to the island that had brought him such hardship and lived out his life as a hermit.

  Its appearance had barely changed over the centuries. Like most of its neighbours, it was an impressive assortment of jagged cliffs, rare marine and birdlife, exotic fauna, and a handful of man-made monuments. In the past, civilisation took the form of two settlements, one named New Town, the other Old Town. The majority of the population had lived in New, which, despite its name, still dated back to the 1700s.

  Hell’s Bay was located at the most south-eastern point of the island, a barren, isolated outcrop that overlooked several small islets that spread out into the North Atlantic. Ben stood at the top of the cliff, looking down across the water. While St Mary’s had been a hotbed of activity, a classic UK seaside resort primed with the latest technology and home to hundreds of people, St Lide’s was lonely, forlorn and forgettable, with evidence only of lost civilisation and habitation.

  Ben felt a sense of despondency about the island, as if a great sadness engulfed it. He felt it in the sounds of the steady wind that created a painful whistling noise as it pierced gaps in the rocks, or that of a seagull’s cry, echoing before slowly fading. The noises were shrill and sharp, almost ghostly, as if the spirits of the past were trapped, their wailing sighs caught somewhere between the beach and the rocks, the present and the past.

  The wind was stronger higher up. It was cold, even compared to St Mary’s, the wind a bitter chill. A low wall, once part of a gun battery from the Civil War, protected the edge of the cliff for a distance of over two hundred metres before disappearing where the land beneath gave way.

  Ben guessed it had once been a lot larger.

  “What is this place?” he asked Kernow, pressing his hands firmly into his pockets for warmth.

  “This whole thing had once been a lookout post, put in by the Cavaliers during the English Civil War.”

  Ben nodded, guessing the story had some credence. About three hundred metres south, the ruins of a small castle overlooked the sea. A single tower rose over fifty feet into the sky, surrounded by outer curtain walls, part of which no longer survived. The only approach was courtesy of a footpath that led from the three strange megalithic stones to the north to a metal footbridge that connected the castle entrance to the rest of the island.

  They walked towards the castle, stopping on reaching the edge of the cliff. Below he counted six caves surrounded by a pebble beach, one of which was partially covered by the waves.

  “At high tide, you can’t see any of these caves,” Kernow said, pointing. “In six hours’ time, this whole thing will be underwater.”

  Ben took in the view, concentrating on everything above the waterline. The area was dangerous, the rocks ragged, the caves on the verge of collapsing.

  “So this is the place?”

  “You know once upon a time, this whole area would have been cut off from the ocean. Instead of a cove, you’d be looking at a lagoon. A small inlet would have existed somewhere over there.” Kernow pointed in the direction of the choppy water that surrounded the outcrop on which the castle still sat. “Over time, land got worn away by subsidence. Most of the east section of the castle is now underwater.”

  Ben nodded. He could tell from the map he had seen in the boathouse how the land had become cut away, almost at a right angle. On the south-east side of the castle, he imagined how the eroded cliff would once have separated the lagoon from the sea. As he observed the site more closely, the eroded cliff, the former lagoon, the castle, he was increasingly drawn to the conclusion that the location had been carefully chosen and that the lagoon might once have served as a moat.

  “Where exactly was the boat found?”

  “Right down there. Languishing against the rocks.”

  Ben was confused. “It was just floating there?”

  Kernow understood what Ben was getting at. “See there.” He motioned to the largest of the caves, third out of six from left to right and partially underwater. “Even a week ago, that crevice was less than half that size.”

  “You mean it caved in?”

  “As a sailor, Hell’s Bay is located in just about the wrong place for everything. When the storm hits, rocks as big as boulders fly up as high as a second-storey window.” He turned to Ben. “Not the place to be caught when the wind is strong.”

  “How do we get down?”

  *

  The pathway that led from the top of the cliff down to the bay was reputedly the most dangerous of all on the Isles of Scilly. What started off as a wide, well-defined area flanked by long grass and colourful wild flowers soon descended into an uneven muddy path that was overgrown with weeds and stinging nettles and exposed to the wind.

  From start to finish, the path was about quarter of a mile long; it took over ten minutes to reach the bottom. Ben led the way as Kernow struggled behind him with the uneven terrain. He took a breath as the pathway met the beach, waiting impatiently for Kernow.

  “This is where the Dunster was found?” Ben shouted up the hill as he gestured to an area of shallow water in a particularly rocky part of the bay. Assuming the answer was yes, it wasn’t difficult to understand how the boat had sustained such extensive damage.

  “A little further on.” Kernow pointed. “It was trapped in the jaws of that cave.”

  Ben followed Kernow’s directions and headed towards the cave. He entered the water as far as his walking boots would allow without getting his feet wet and continued all the way to the cave, where the water level was much shallower.

  He looked around, taking in the view of Hell’s Bay. A pebble beach in the shape of a crescent moon separated the caves from the water, its hard stones occasionally becoming swept up by the gentle tide. Inside the cave he could hear the sounds of creatures moving: fish, birds, perhaps even the fluttering of bats.

  Visibility was restricted to about ten metres.

  Composing himself, he entered the cave, doing his best to ignore the cold. The water became deeper the further he ventured; some seeped in from the nearby rock pools, while the rest he assumed was leftover from the high tide. There was evidence of marine life everywhere, mostly shells or starfish, some lying dead on the rocks. A familiar stench pervaded the cave, rotting seaweed, dead fish . . .

  Silt.

  Kernow had made it down the path, and was leaning against a rock. He removed some tobacco from his top left pocket, filled his pipe and lit it. It was clear to Ben he had been right about the cave’s recent collapse.

  “A week earlier it was half this size, you say?”

  “Once upon a time this was all much smaller,” he said of the nearest cave. “Back in the 1800s, it would have been four times as small. Back then it would hardly have been possible to fit a boat in at all.”

  Ben explored as much as the light would allow before returning to Kernow. From his brief preliminary survey, he couldn’t determine where exactly a boat could have been hidden.

  “Where’d you find it?” Ben asked.

  “The Dunster was found here.” Kernow gestured to an area of sharp rocks and shallow water less than ten metres away. “The last sh
ip to turn up here was about seven years ago, a fine vessel named the Tripoli.”

  “You’re sure the Dunster was trapped in the cave?”

  “Back in 1909, the whole island was abandoned as a result of consistent subsidence. It’s quite possible your ancestor witnessed that first hand when he was here.”

  Ben nodded. “When exactly was my great-great-grandfather’s boat found?”

  “Six days ago. About nine thirty Friday morning. See, I’d been fishing off St Agnes. Can be a great place to drop the net if you get there early enough.”

  “Why’d you come here?”

  “Was sailing past Hell’s Bay just before nine, along with a good friend of mine, Bill Tolliday. It was actually Bill who noticed it first. Initially he thought it was a schooner languishing on the rocks.”

  “Who got it out?”

  “I informed the coastguard immediately, using the radio, but by the time we checked it ourselves, we realised what we were dealing with. Later that day I came back with the Lancreta.”

  “The what?”

  “Name I gave my other boat. Routine sweep of the island suggested more rocks had come down as a result of the storm a few days before. Radar from the local weather station confirmed it had been particularly bad around Hell’s Bay.”

  Ben nodded and forced a smile, doing his best to control his emotions. He took a deep breath, but no matter how hard he tried, air just refused to go down. The cold was bracing, but he knew it was not the icy wind alone that accounted for the horrible shivering in his spine.

  He investigated the other caves in turn, each revealing nothing out of the ordinary. Unsurprisingly, all confirmed evidence of silt.

  “Thanks for your time, friend.”

  8

  1 p.m.

  Valeria had been working on reception since 10 a.m. She had relieved Danny from his twelve-hour night shift as another waiter took over the café and was still to have a break since.

  Danny was randy, as he always was after a long shift – at least that was the claim. After seven years at the Gibbous Moon, she had got used to his advances; harmless, she deduced, if not a little predictable.

  As the only Spanish woman on the island, she knew she held a position of exotic prestige, and as the inn’s only female employee, her effect on the male folk was almost like that of a lighted candle to a moth. At twenty-nine she was still in her prime, every aspect of her appearance worthy of admiring compliments. Her long, dark hair, which had perfectly flanked her smooth, tanned skin the day she arrived, was as pretty now as it had ever been. The natural waviness, for many something only an expensive trip to a salon could bring, was for her almost a birthright: a family trait she had inherited from her mother. While the tan had faded, everything else remained unchanged. In the winter months the occasional cosmetic top-up would sustain the image; not that anyone would have guessed it was faked. Working eight-hour, five-day-a-week shifts, many might have forgiven her for the occasional lapse in her immaculate appearance, but in seven years there had been none.

  “Mr Malone,” she said, catching Ben as he wandered past the desk. “Your grandfather’s room is available.”

  Ben hesitated before walking towards the desk, accepting the key with his outstretched hand. “Much obliged.”

  *

  Room seven appeared to be identical to his previous room, but somehow it felt different.

  Like the last, a four-poster double bed occupied the centre of the room, its heavy base leaving marks on the rugged carpet. Prints and various other artworks covered the cream-coloured walls, the appearance of each somehow more auspicious than the last, giving the room a unique atmosphere.

  Sitting at the desk, Ben heard a knock at the open door, heralding the arrival of Chris. Like earlier that day, he was dressed in a black T-shirt and blue jeans and was carrying TF’s diary.

  “D’you find the guy who found the boat?”

  “Matter of fact, I did. The man’s name is Peter Kernow, a local fisherman. Found the Dunster with the help of one of his pals. Apparently it had become dislodged from a small cave after a storm.”

  “How did it look?”

  “Horrendous!” Ben got out his phone and showed Chris a selection of photographs. “At least you can’t smell it.”

  Chris looked at the photographs, all of which were of a wooden vessel covered in a slimy grey coating. “Gee, I’d always wondered what a boat cocooned for a hundred years in silt would look like. Anything of interest?”

  “Not really,” Ben replied, almost feeling as though he had dishonoured TF’s memory. “Most of it had fallen apart. How about the diary?”

  “Interesting. Seems TF was captivated by some graveyard. And a particular stained-glass window in the nearby church.”

  “Where was it?”

  “I asked the waitress. She said the main graveyard on the island is in a place called Old Town. It’s just outside of town.”

  Chris offered Ben the diary, speeding him through the important stuff. As he read, Ben could feel a sense of anticipation rising within him. For thirty-two years he had been fed the stories of his family’s past: snippets, myths, blotches of information, specks on history’s timeline that he had no idea how to validate or disprove.

  Whatever the exact reason TF came back to the Isles of Scilly, he knew it must have been important.

  He scanned the pages concerning the graveyard, paying close attention to the diagrams of the symbols on the six graves. He recognised one immediately: a double-headed eagle, which had apparently appeared consistently on all six. After almost fourteen years studying and teaching European history, Ben knew that historically it represented the supreme symbol of power of church and state.

  TF had associated its design with the Habsburgs.

  The other symbols were less easy to decipher. TF had speculated that several were Mesoamerican, one being the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl. Ben immediately understood the interpretation. According to accounts written by the conquistadors, Montezuma had mistaken the arrival of Hernán Cortés for the return of their god.

  In addition to drawings of the graves, there were others of things TF had seen inside the church. There were diagrams of angel statues in the Lady Chapel; one was clearly of a woman, her slender figure adorned with a large necklace in the shape of an eight-pointed rose. Ben rubbed his chin, sensing the image was somehow familiar. He remembered another story associated with Cortés; supposedly among the countless emeralds he brought back from Mexico, five were notably special.

  Shaped like a rose, a cup, a bell, a fish and a trumpet.

  The next thing he noticed was TF’s drawing of the window above the entrance, where each of the five emeralds were depicted at various locations.

  Raising an eyebrow, Ben closed the book and got to his feet.

  “Come on. Let’s check it out.”

  Somewhere in Spain

  On the far side of a lonely hill, the three Spaniards got out of their black Renault Mégane and made their way through the undergrowth on foot.

  A hundred years is a long time, particularly if you’re a gardener. The array of wild flowers, once so beautifully kept, had become a ragged jungle of death and decay. The entire east side of the hill was overgrown with long grass, particularly compared with the entrances to the old buildings. Countless stone cottages littered the hillside like lookout towers, their orange walls baking under the hot midday sun.

  Even in the modern day, the village’s population didn’t exceed a few dozen.

  A single pathway led up one side of the hill, ascending at a gentle gradient before reaching the summit. At that point it straightened out, before ending at a battered lichgate.

  The three men followed the path to the other side of the hill, at which point they spread out. Something was there, hidden amongst the churchyard.

  And had been for over four hundred years.

  9

  Ben was standing in the east section of the churchyard, reading the inscription on the near
est grave. He had learned from the diary that TF had discovered three graves, all bearing the name Wilcox.

  He was still to find any of them.

  He had been looking for something specific, something TF had mentioned as a guide. The diary described it as a memorial stone or monument. The diagram was rough but accompanied by precise descriptions: five burly men carrying a ship, perhaps a Spanish galleon. The monument had allegedly been erected in honour of those who had lost their lives in the nearby waters, but TF had clearly been sceptical. He had also described it as a ‘strong stone structure, orange or brown, depending on the light’.

  Again, Ben was still to find it.

  Old Town Church was one of two churches on St Mary’s, located a fifteen-minute walk from Hugh Town and atop a hill that offered inspiring views of the south coast. Like most churches in England, what began as a Roman Church in the mid 12th century turned Anglican at the height of the reformation, with building work carried out at various intervals during the following two centuries until it fell into disrepair. Decrepit, forlorn, the charming remains were lovingly restored on the orders of the island’s governor, bringing it back to its former glory.

  Though the church had rarely been used in over a century, the graveyard was the largest on the island and remained the principal cemetery for all of the Isles of Scilly. Over the centuries, the lush green field had become the final resting place for all of the important local families, including those of the sailors who had lost their lives since the early Middle Ages.

  Chris returned from inside the church, carrying a pamphlet. “There’s a service on at half five,” he said, stopping beside Ben. “You know, according to this, they don’t even have electricity. They have to conduct the entire thing using candles.”

  Ben raised an eyebrow. “Makes you appreciate St Michael’s all the more, doesn’t it?” he said of the local church back home.