Island of Thieves (16 page)

I glanced at Uncle Harvey. If he arrived at my boat, asking for a lift, would I say yes? No way. Not a chance. He looked crazy and he had a big patch of blood on his pants. I wouldn't let him anywhere near me. But if he pulled out a handful of dollars, I might change my mind.

Once the boatmen delivered us back to the mainland, we'd buy ourselves a couple of tickets on the next bus to Lima. Today was Sunday. Our flights left tomorrow. We'd get to the airport with hours to spare. With any luck, we'd even have time to take a shower and buy some new clothes.

I was plotting the future so confidently that I didn't even notice the soldiers.

Six men surrounded us, shouting in Spanish.
They were wearing combat pants, camouflage jackets, and polished boots. Five of them had rifles, which they were pointing at us, and the sixth had a pistol, which he kept holstered. My uncle raised his arms in the air and yelled back at them:
“Inglés! Inglés!”

I put my hands up too. I really didn't want to get shot. Not now. Not after escaping from Otto.
We're the good guys,
I wanted to say.
We're on your side.
But I just kept quiet and tried to look harmless.

The man with the pistol seemed to be in charge. He told the others to shut up and gave us a signal which obviously meant
follow me.

We did as we were told. Down the hill we went. Walking fast. Three guards ahead of us and three more behind.

More soldiers were waiting for us beside two khaki jeeps. One of them grabbed my uncle and shoved him toward the nearest vehicle. We clambered into the back. There weren't seats for the guards, but they clung on to the sides and we set off, bumping down a rough track toward the prison.

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” hissed my uncle to me. “Slowly! Don't give them any excuse to shoot you.”

I put my hands on my lap where everyone could see them.

A big pair of steel gates swung open to let us in. We drove through a no man's land of dirty earth dotted with patches of unkempt grass. Guard towers and spotlights glared down at us. Wherever I looked, I saw men with guns. Another pair of gates swung open and we were in the main courtyard, surrounded by big grim buildings with barred windows. Men were unloading crates from the back of a truck. They stopped to stare curiously at us. Then someone shouted an angry order and they returned to their work.

The jeeps parked beside a doorway. We were ordered out. We stood there for a few minutes, stamping our feet on the ground, trying to keep warm, and then one of the soldiers told us to follow him. Four of them escorted us into the prison. Along a corridor. Through a door. Then another. Down more corridors. Till we came to a little room without any windows or furniture. Two more guards were waiting for us. They stepped forward. Without a word, they started patting us down. I suppose they were searching us for weapons.

My uncle looked over at me. “How are you doing, kiddo?”

“Fine, thanks. How about you?”

“I'm desperate for a cup of coffee.” He turned to the nearest guards.
“Un café, por favor?”

The guard snapped back in Spanish.

“I don't know what you're saying,” said Uncle Harvey. “I don't suppose you speak English, do you?
Inglés? Habla Inglés? Vous parlez français? Sprechen sie Deutsch?
”

This time, the guard didn't even bother answering.

They made us empty our pockets. They found our passports, the dollars and the credit cards, all sodden, but intact, and a small red penknife, which my uncle had been carrying in his back pocket.

“You can't take that,” he said. “I've had it since I was ten years old.”

Ignoring him, they confiscated it all.

“Oh, come on, chaps,” protested Uncle Harvey. “That knife has a lot of sentimental value. If I promise not to use it, could I have it back? Please? Pretty please?”

The guards couldn't understand a word he was saying, but they probably wouldn't have cared even if they did. One of them pocketed the penknife and another took our money and passports. Then they ushered us down yet more long white corridors and through several thick steel doors.

I'd always imagined that prison guards carried big bunches of keys strapped to their belts, but this place was entirely electronic. Every door had its own keypad. I wondered how the security worked. Did they change the code every day? Every week? Did some codes only work for some doors? I suppose I was already thinking about escaping, although the prospect wasn't exactly hopeful. Even if you found a way to sneak through the doors and past the armed guards, you'd still have to climb two fences, cross the no man's land, and get off the island.

We came to another big steel door, guarded by two more men in uniform. The door swung shut behind us, closing with a heavy clunk, and we found ourselves in a smart office with antique furniture and paintings in gold frames hanging on the walls. A thin, middle-aged man in a black suit was sitting behind a desk, typing on a computer. He had a neatly trimmed beard and small round glasses, giving him the look of a professor or a teacher. He finished whatever he was typing, then came around to meet us, speaking in Spanish.

“I don't suppose you speak French?” asked my uncle. “Or even English?”

“Of course I do,” said the man in the black suit. “Which would you prefer?”

“English, please. Your accent is excellent.”

“Thank you. I spent a year at Cambridge. Do you know Cambridge?”

“I know it very well. Actually, I was there myself. Which college were you in?”

“Trinity.”

“Really? What a coincidence! I was there too!” My uncle was grinning as if he'd stumbled across an old friend. “Maybe we overlapped. When did you go up?”

“Oh, a very long time ago. Let me see . . . twenty-three years. And only for a year. I came to England on an exchange with Lima University.”

“I'm a little younger than you,” said my uncle. “We wouldn't have been there at the same time. But it's always nice to meet another Cantabrigian. Even in prison. Presumably you're not actually a prisoner here?”

The man smiled. “In a sense, yes, I am. Like the other prisoners, I cannot leave this place. But I have committed no crime. This is simply my job. I'm sorry, how rude of me. I must introduce myself. My name is Javier Velasquez, and I am the governor of this prison. My men told me that they had picked up two foreigners trespassing on the north side of the island. I hope they haven't treated you roughly.”

“Not at all,” said my uncle. “I have managed to cut my leg, but that was nothing to do with your men. It's not bleeding anymore, but I could do with a clean bandage. Do you think I could see a doctor?”

“Yes, of course. We have several doctors here. One of them can see you immediately. I'll take you there myself. But first, I must ask you one question. I know the English are famous for their eccentricity, but even this will not explain why the two of you are walking around Isla de la Frontera. Tell me, please, why are you here?”

“I won't lie to you,” replied my uncle. “I have to admit, I was going to. I had been planning to tell you that we're tourists and we've been on a fishing trip. I would have said that our boat smashed on the rocks and we swam to shore. Perhaps you wouldn't have believed me. Perhaps you would. It doesn't matter, because I'm going to tell you exactly why we're here, Señor Velasquez. Do you know who I mean by Otto Gonzalez?”

“There is a man of that name who is famous in Peru. He is one of our most notorious criminals.”

“That's him. If you're quick, you could capture him right now and lock him up in your prison.”

“What are you talking about? Where is he?”

“On this island.”

“How do you know?”

“There isn't time to tell you the whole story,” said Uncle Harvey. “When you've captured Otto Gonzalez and put him safely in a cell, I'll tell you why he's here. For now, you simply have to catch him. And lock him up.”

I could see that the governor wasn't quite sure whether to believe us. Which was fair enough. Would you believe a couple of foreigners with wet clothes who came out of nowhere and told you that a famous crook was just around the corner? But I got the sense that he'd decided to give us the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was persuaded by the Cambridge connection. Or maybe he simply decided it was worth taking the risk. He picked up a phone and barked some orders in Spanish. Then he put the phone down and told us that a squad of his best men would leave their quarters immediately and search the island for Otto.

“If he is here, my men will find him,” said the governor confidently.

Two guards escorted us from the governor's office
and put us in a small room. It wasn't a cell, but it wasn't exactly luxurious either. The walls were whitewashed and the tiny window had steel bars, which looked unbreakable. There was a table and four chairs. This was probably where you got to wait if you were a lawyer or a wife, paying an official visit to the prison. You hadn't actually committed a crime yourself, but you were on the side of the prisoner rather than the law, so there was no need to give you carpets, comfy chairs, or a nice view of the ocean.

The doctor was waiting for us, a black leather bag perched on his knees. He couldn't speak more than a few words of English, but he managed to communicate all he needed in smiles and sign language. He untied the tourniquet and carefully inspected my uncle's wound, then reached into his bag and pulled out a couple of bottles and a packet of gauze. He dabbed the wound with disinfectant and wrapped it in a fresh dressing.

“You lucky man,” he said with a wide grin. “Very lucky man.”

“It's the luck of the Trelawneys,” said Uncle Harvey.

The doctor looked at him with a quizzical expression, then shrugged his shoulders and went back to work. Looking at the wound, I could see he was right. Uncle Harvey was exceedingly lucky. The bullet had gone cleanly in and out. He had lost a little blood and probably gained a scar, but nothing worse.

Uncle Harvey grinned at me. “Let's hope you've got it too.”

“Got what?” I asked.

“The family luck.”

“How do I get it? Just by being a Trelawney?”

“No, no. Not all of us have it. Your father doesn't, for instance. But I think you might. I still don't know you very well, Tom, but I suspect you may be a good, old-fashioned Trelawney.”

“What does that mean? What's a good, old-fashioned Trelawney?”

“You don't know about our family history?”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“There's a little village in Cornwall that used to be full of Trelawneys. You should go there. Maybe we'll go together one day. Anyway, those Trelawneys were fishermen by day and smugglers by night. Some of them were hanged, others were lost at sea. A few even got sent to Australia. Those are your ancestors, Tom. Cornish pirates. I'm surprised your dad's never told you about them. Actually, no, I'm not. He probably doesn't want you to know what it means to be a real Trelawney.”

The door swung open and the governor came into the room. He put our passports, money, and credit cards on the table. “Here are your documents,” he said. “I'm sorry that my men confiscated them, but they are naturally suspicious of any trespassers on this island. I have faxed copies of your passports to the British and U.S. embassies. They will call me soon to confirm your identities, and then I can arrange for transport back to the mainland. I hope you're comfortable in here. Is there anything that you need?”

“Dry clothes would be wonderful,” said my uncle.

“Of course. I will have some brought to you.”

“And I wouldn't mind my penknife.”

“Your what?”

“I had a penknife,” said my uncle. “A little knife that I've owned since I was a boy. It's not worth anything, but it has a lot of sentimental value. One of your men nabbed it. Is there any chance of having it back?”

“One of my men took it, you say?”

Uncle Harvey explained how one guard had pocketed the knife while another took the money and passports. The governor looked shocked and angry. Promising to find out exactly what had happened, he hurried away.

The doctor finished his work and left us, locking the door behind him. However friendly the governor might have been, we were still prisoners.

We didn't have to wait long before a guard arrived with a bundle of clean clothes and dumped them on the floor. Once he'd gone, we sorted through the jeans, shirts, and socks, choosing what to wear. Most of the clothes fit my uncle, but they were all much too big for me, even with the shirtsleeves and the legs of the jeans rolled up. There couldn't have been anyone as small as me in the prison. I hung my own clothes over the end of a chair and hoped they'd dry soon.

“Let's call room service,” said my uncle. “I'm going to have a beer and a club sandwich. What do you want?”

“A glass of water, please.”

“That's all? Nothing else? Come on, Tom. We're in the best hotel on Isla de la Frontera. We might as well treat ourselves to a decent lunch. If you could order anything right now, what would you order? Steak and fries? Burger and chips? Fried chicken and chocolate cake?”

“You know, Uncle Harvey, I'm not really in the mood.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. For once, he didn't tell me not to call him Uncle Harvey. “Take no notice of me. I'm just being an idiot. But you can relax, Tom. Everything's going to be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“Because we're safe here.”

He sounded so confident that I almost believed him. “Really? What do you think is going to happen to us now?”

“With any luck, the British embassy will send someone to fetch us. Even if they don't, they'll confirm I'm British, and we'll get out of here. Velasquez won't want to keep a British and a U.S. citizen in his prison without any charge. Especially if he thinks one of them went to Cambridge. He seemed to like my story, didn't he?”