The Armada Legacy bh-8 Page 15

  Ben looked at him in disgust. His hands were shaking with the urge to slam Butler’s head against the desk. Hard. Repeatedly. ‘And you believed all that.’

  ‘You can’t make me feel any worse than I already do,’ Butler said in a flat, empty voice. ‘I know I don’t deserve a penny of that money. I don’t even deserve to live. It wasn’t just Roger. Wally and Sam are dead too, thanks to me. And your friend … I’m just so very sorry. I don’t know what to say.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘Rachel hates me, you know. My kids hate me. They’re right to hate me. I wish I was dead.’

  Ben’s face hardened even more. ‘You said Forsyte had planned to meet up with a history expert about whatever was inside the case.’

  Butler sniffed. ‘Yeah. He said Cabeza would help him learn more about it, before going public.’

  ‘Cabeza. Who is he?’

  ‘Juan Fernando Cabeza. He’s a history professor. Used to teach at the University of Seville, now he’s freelance. Specialises in old manuscripts and documents, stuff like that.’

  ‘Why did Forsyte need to go to Spain to find a historian? There must be fifty thousand of them in London.’

  ‘Because nobody can beat Cabeza in his area of special knowledge,’ Butler said. ‘It’s the Habsburg Empire, the period of Spain’s domination of most of Europe and its massive overseas territories during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. So much sunken treasure dates back to that time that we’ve gone back to Cabeza for help again and again in the past.’

  ‘You said he dealt in old manuscripts and documents?’

  ‘There’s other kinds of treasure apart from gold and precious stones,’ Butler said. ‘Maps. Letters, diaries, memoirs of historical significance. Military orders. Political communiqués. Stuff like that can be of huge value. When important papers were to be carried by ship in those days, they often used to protect them inside waterproof caskets sealed with wax. We’ve recovered examples that had survived for centuries at the bottom of the ocean.’

  ‘So can we assume that the briefcase contained some kind of old documents that had been taken from the wreck?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Butler said. ‘If Cabeza was involved, it seems likely. But I can’t say. Like I told you, Roger didn’t let me in on it.’

  ‘But he might have revealed more to this Cabeza?’

  Butler shrugged. ‘Might have. I don’t think the guy would have agreed to a meeting otherwise. He’s become more and more reclusive over the years. Roger used to gripe about how hard it was to get him on the phone, let alone agree to a face-to-face. Then again, Roger might have just offered to pay him a packet and wasn’t going to tell him anything until the meeting.’

  Ben considered for a moment. ‘Where does Cabeza live?’

  ‘After he quit his university job he went off to live in the mountains near Málaga. Out in the middle of nowhere, Roger said. I couldn’t tell you exactly.’

  Ben looked at him.

  ‘I swear,’ Butler said. ‘If I knew, I’d tell you.’

  ‘Then who does? Maxwell?’

  ‘As far as I know, Roger was the only one in touch with him. I suppose he’d have his address.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In his business address book.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘He keeps … I mean, kept it in his desk at the office.’

  ‘Get your coat on,’ Ben said, standing up. ‘We’ll go in my car.’

  ‘Now? At this time of night?’

  ‘Now,’ Ben said, and Butler didn’t argue any more.

  Butler gave out reluctant directions and kept a death-grip on the passenger door handle as Ben sped into Southampton. The NME offices were a large steel-and-glass building on the outskirts of the city, overlooking the broad stretch of Southampton Water and the lights of the Fawley oil refinery in the distance.

  ‘Security?’ Ben asked as they pulled up outside.

  ‘A guard patrols the building at night,’ Butler said nervously. ‘What if he asks questions?’

  ‘You can offer to cut him in on your poker winnings,’ Ben said.

  ‘That’s not funny. Can’t this wait until morning?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What if Roger’s office isn’t open?’

  ‘Then we’ll open it,’ Ben said.

  ‘I shouldn’t be doing this.’

  ‘Just keep reminding yourself why you are,’ Ben told him.

  Butler used a scan card to let them into the building. They stepped into a large foyer. Butler was heading automatically for a light switch when Ben stopped him, producing the Mini Maglite he carried in his bag.

  ‘Roger’s office is on the first floor,’ Butler whispered. Ben darted the thin light beam around the foyer and noticed a fire exit stairway leading upwards. ‘That way,’ he said.

  Ben kept his ear out for the night watchman as they climbed the stairs and emerged through the fire door onto the first floor. The building was cold, but Butler’s face was shiny with sweat in the torchlight. ‘Roger’s office,’ he whispered at the end of a shadowy corridor.

  Butler tried the door. ‘Just as I thought. It’s locked.’

  Ben brushed his hand down the door and shone his torch. It looked and felt like solid oak.

  ‘It’s no use,’ Butler was saying. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  Ben moved a step back from the door. Took a breath, mustered up his strength, then rushed at it and lashed out with the sole of his boot. The ripping crackle of splintering door frame reverberated down the corridor. Ben felt it give slightly. He kicked it again, and this time the door crashed wide open and smacked hard against the inside wall of Forsyte’s office.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Butler muttered.

  ‘Never mind him,’ Ben said, handing him the torch. ‘Get me the book.’ If Forsyte’s desk was locked, he’d have to smash that open too.

  ‘I can’t do this.’

  Ben gave him a look. Butler quickly scurried into the office while Ben stayed out in the corridor listening for the security guard. He could hear Butler groping about inside. The sound of a drawer sliding open, papers being shuffled about, then a soft cry: ‘Got it.’

  Butler stumbled his way out of the shadowy room and pressed the hardback address book into Ben’s hands. By the thin white beam of the torch Ben quickly flipped through the address book to the letter C. There he was, halfway down the crammed page in Forsyte’s jerky, sharp-edged writing: Professor Juan Fernando Cabeza, together with the address in Spain that Ben needed. He tore out the page and tossed the book back inside the office. ‘Let’s go,’ he said to Butler.

  Back outside, Butler was about to clamber into the Lexus passenger seat when Ben grasped his arm and wheeled him away from the car. Butler cringed like a beaten dog.

  ‘You’re walking home,’ Ben said. ‘The exercise’ll do you good.’

  ‘What are you doing to do?’ Butler quavered.

  ‘I’m going to see Cabeza,’ Ben said.

  ‘No, I meant, what are you going to do to me?’

  ‘That depends on what I find at the end of this,’ Ben said. ‘If Brooke’s all right, maybe I’ll be able to forget that a piece of shit like you exists.’ He started walking round to the driver’s side. ‘But if she isn’t all right, then you’d better get some more vodka and pills, and kill yourself properly before I come for you.’

  Butler had no reply to make. Ben got into the car, shut the door and started the engine. As the Lexus sped away, Simon Butler shrank to a tiny figure in the rear-view mirror and then disappeared altogether.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Brooke had interviewed many former kidnap victims during her years as a hostage psychology educator and consultant. One of the key lessons that had come out of those discussions, and which she’d always striven to emphasise in her lectures on the subject, was the vital importance of staying mentally sharp and focused during captivity. Psychological fitness was at least as critical as physical exercise to a hostage’s wellbeing – one
UN aid worker she’d known who had been abducted by a volatile armed gang in Somalia and held for five months in a dingy cellar, not knowing from day to day whether he was to be released or shot in the head, had managed to survive the ordeal by building a wooden boat in his mind.

  Plank by plank, joint by joint, he’d designed and constructed the thing over and over in his imagination as he’d sat there in the rat-infested darkness. As soon as the boat was completed, he would mentally dismantle it piece by piece and then immediately start redesigning an improved version. On his eventual release he’d never wanted to see another boat again in his life, but those months of mental discipline had saved him from going crazy.

  How an individual chose to cope was down to them, as long as they found something to keep their mind busy and ward off the soul-destroying fear and stress of captivity. Those who caved in under the terrible pressure might survive the experience physically, but were very often never the same people again.

  Brooke didn’t know much about boat-building. Instead, using an eyeliner pencil and a page ripped out of one of the vapid women’s magazines that had been left for her to read, she busied herself during that afternoon by drawing a plan of her prison.

  She started with the house itself, based on the parts of it that she’d seen when the guards had taken her down to see Serrato earlier. She’d returned from her meeting with her ‘host’ to find that the damaged window blinds had been repaired, but that the unseen workmen had accidentally left a small gap allowing her to peer through and observe the surrounding compound.

  She’d traced the shape of the outer wall, or as much of it as was visible to her, and drawn little rectangular shapes to show the positions of the buildings around the main house. The hangar from which vehicles came and went was marked ‘garage’; the squat white building from which she’d observed more armed men wandering to and fro in pairs and groups throughout the afternoon was tentatively labelled ‘guard house?’. A twisting dotted line represented the roadway from the gates that vanished into the surrounding jungle. Then there were the fortified gates themselves, with tiny matchstick figures showing the guards who constantly manned them.

  Brooke spent a long time staring out beyond the gates at the jungle and wondering where that snaking road went. Was there a town nearby, or even a small village where a lone fugitive on foot might be able to get help?

  Her secret map wasn’t an escape plan, not yet. Another cardinal rule that she’d always drummed into anyone attending her lectures was that, unless they had a solid strategy and were completely certain they were fully equipped to survive outside the stronghold, a kidnap victim should never try to escape. It was a last resort that almost always ended in disaster, death or recapture, entailing punishment and the loss of whatever tiny privileges the hostage might have started out with. But she was determined to find out everything she could about her environment.

  The only way Brooke had of telling the time was to go over to the window repeatedly to check the position of the sun over the jungle, which told her that her room faced west. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, the door was unlocked and Consuela and Presentacion came in with a tray of coffee and little cakes, seeming anxious to tend to her every need.

  Room service only made her predicament seem even stranger. Despite the language barrier, Brooke made the older of the Brazilian women understand that she’d like some more comfortable things to wear. Consuela seemed reluctant and anxious at first, but the clothes arrived an hour or so later: a couple of neatly-ironed T-shirts, tracksuit bottoms, a pair of tennis shoes.

  Brooke was interested in forming a rapport with Consuela and her daughter, firstly because a hostage’s most valuable asset was a friendly face among their kidnappers, and secondly because it was very obvious that the two women weren’t to be counted among the bad guys. She could tell that they were almost as scared as she was of their employer.

  But what was less clear to Brooke was the odd, continual fascination they seemed to have for her – the way they’d stare at her sometimes, and whisper to one another in Portuguese. Twice more she’d caught the name ‘Alicia’ – but like before, when she asked who Alicia was, all she got were timid looks and silence.

  Left alone again, Brooke checked her window for any more developments outside. She spotted a figure she recognised: it was the stinky cigar-smoking guard, standing over by the compound wall sneaking a quick puff when he thought nobody was watching. He took a half-smoked stub and a lighter from his breast pocket and started blowing great clouds. Brooke observed him for a moment, then moved back from the window to do some push-ups, sit-ups and running on the spot. She might be trapped in here, but she was determined to stay fit and strong.

  The sun was sinking in the west by the time she received another visit: Consuela and Presentacion had returned to prepare her for what she quickly realised was to be another meeting with her host.

  ‘Not again,’ she groaned when Consuela revealed the dress she was to wear. It was as delicate and expensive as the first, but this time it was a deep shade of emerald green. Needless to say, the high-heeled sandals matched perfectly. Brooke closed herself in the bathroom and put on the dress and shoes without protest. What was the point? Satisfied and beaming at her, the women departed.

  Moments later the door opened again. Two guards had come for her. It was hard to tell which one looked more menacing: the musclebound one with the glossy jet-black hair tied back in a thick ponytail, or the wiry one with the top half of his right ear missing.

  ‘Only two goons this time,’ she snapped at them. ‘We must be making progress. How about you just give me a key to my door?’

  The guards said nothing as they walked her along the passage, down the staircase and through a maze of corridors and hallways she’d never seen before.

  ‘Slow down,’ she told them. ‘I can hardly walk in these bloody things.’ Whether they understood her or not, they slowed their pace and she was able to take in the layout of the passageways so that she could add them to her map later.

  The guards ushered her into an enormous room and shut the door. The walls were adorned with gilt-framed oils and mirrors, and a glittering crystal chandelier shone down on a long dining table covered in a white silk cloth and a gleaming array of silverware and glassware.

  Sitting alone at the head of the table was Ramon Serrato, immaculate in a cream-coloured suit. He stood up as Brooke entered the room, and stared at her for a long moment as if stunned by her appearance. Then, seeming to collect his wits, he wished her good evening and pulled out a chair near the top of the table for her.

  ‘I trust you passed a pleasant afternoon?’ he asked.

  Brooke was about to make an angry reply when another door opened and two white-coated male servants filed into the room. One was carrying an ice bucket on a silver platter, the other wheeling a trolley bearing hors d’oeuvres. Without a word they set everything down on the table, then hurried away again like mice.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Serrato said, seeing her expression. ‘Are you not hungry? The pâté de foie gras is very good. I recommend eating the toast while it is still warm. And the wine is a Cabernet-Sauvignon, from my own vineyard in Chile.’

  Right, she thought to herself. So we’re not in Brazil. And we’re not in Chile either. How many South American countries did that leave to choose from? Too damn many. ‘Am I supposed to be impressed with all this?’ she said out loud.

  ‘I would have hoped so. There are many people who would never have a meal like this in their lives.’

  ‘That makes me feel so much better. I should be grateful to you, really.’

  ‘Have you ever been poor?’ he asked her, reaching for the champagne. ‘So poor that you had only stinking rags to wear, so hungry that you would kill a rat with your bare hands and eat it?’ he smiled. ‘No, I don’t think so. You have always been comfortable. Perhaps if you had grown up in poverty as I did, you would appreciate this more.’

  Brooke said nothing. />
  ‘You don’t believe me,’ he said. ‘And yet it’s true. I spent my childhood in the slums of Mexico City. My brothers and I had to beg for food while my mother cleaned toilets and my father picked watermelons for a few pesos a day. Our whole family lived in two rooms that were not fit to keep animals in.’

  ‘I’m overwhelmed with sympathy.’

  Serrato looked at her sharply. ‘I am sure you would have been, if you could have seen the way we lived. It was a squalid existence. As a boy I would watch the rich men drive past in their big cars and I knew that I was destined for better things. My grandfather used to tell us that for all our poverty and unhappiness, there was noble blood in our veins. Noble blood,’ Serrato repeated, ‘dating back to the time when the Spanish Empire covered half the world. My mother and father used to laugh and tell us not to listen to an old fool’s tales. It was not until I was much older that I learned that my grandfather was right.’

  Brooke didn’t reply.

  Serrato seemed about to continue, then restrained himself. ‘But I have no right to bore such a charming companion with stories of my past. Won’t you take some foie gras?’

  ‘Stick your foie gras. I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Perhaps this will whet your appetite.’ Serrato reached behind him and picked up a square, flat jewellery box, which he slid across the table towards her. ‘A gift.’

  ‘You think I’d want anything from you?’

  ‘Please, I insist.’

  Brooke opened the box. Inside was a diamond and emerald necklace that looked as if it must be worth about the same as her flat in Richmond, together with a matching bracelet. ‘What the hell are these?’

  ‘They’re yours. And I should very much like to see you in them.’

  The green dress matched perfectly with the sparkling emeralds: it was clear that Serrato liked to plan every little detail. The way he was looking at her was deeply unsettling, but she met his eye and replied fiercely, ‘I’m not your doll, or anyone else’s, to be draped in bangles and beads.’