Tears of the Jaguar (24 page)

“I’m sorry, Deborah,” said Powel, “but I really have to go. Keep me informed, OK?”

Deborah hung up and sighed. It was too late to go snooping about the site where the crystal had been found, and she was hungry. Dinner, bed, and then an early start: hopefully in twenty-four hours she’d know if there was any reason to stay in Lancashire to investigate further.

Once the idea had occurred to her, it took her ten minutes of eyeing the phone sideways as she bustled about to call her mother. Just as she was about to lose her nerve and disconnect, her mother picked up. “So you’re finally calling,” said her mother. “Where are you?”

“England,” said Deborah.

“England? What do you know from England? I thought you were in Mexico.”

“I was,” said Deborah, wearying fast, “but something came up.”

“Quite the jetsetter these days. Too bad you can’t squeeze in a visit to Boston once in a while.”

“To visit a house I’ve never seen before?”

“I haven’t sold it yet. Our house, I mean, not Steve’s place. I don’t see the big deal. It’s just a house. It’s not like you ever visit.”

“It’s where I grew up,” said Deborah, getting up and starting to pace. “It’s where we all lived together.”

“With your father, you mean.”

“Yes,” said Deborah, reproachfully. “It was our place.”

“You wanna buy it? Make me an offer.”

“Funny.”

“I just don’t see the big deal.”

“I know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’m insensitive because I’m moving forward?”

“No, Ma.”

“Your father’s dead, Deborah.”

“Who could ever think you insensitive?”

“I’m just saying.”

Deborah said nothing.

“Steve is a good man,” said her mother. “You’d know that if you came by once in a while. He makes me happy.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“You know, Debs, finding a man might make you happy, too.”

“I’m perfectly happy, thanks,” said Deborah.

“Yeah? All this charging around, digging up old things and dead people. You’re still young. You should be with the living. What do you care about all that dead stuff? I just don’t understand it.”

“Clearly.”

“And now you want to hold on to this huge old house like it’s your personal archaeological site, your little window into a past that died with your father.”

“Don’t try to get inside my head,” Deborah cut in, hearing her mother’s voice hardening.

“God forbid anyone should do that, right, Debs? God forbid anyone should give you a little perspective, a little insight from someone who’s been around the block a few times.”

“You’ve not been around my block,” Deborah shot back.

“How could I?” her mother said. “I couldn’t get near your intellectual level, could I? I’m not smart enough for you, not like your father. I was never good enough for you.”

“
You
were never good enough for
me
?” Deborah said, incredulous. “How about putting it the other way round?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You would have done anything for Rachel. You did!”

“Let’s keep your sister out of this. I treat you both the same.”

“Oh, please.”

“I get to see her more, is all. And sure,” she said, conceding the point but defiant in doing so, “I
understand
her. Her life. Her marriage. Her job. It all makes perfect sense to me. What I don’t understand is turning into a spinster surrounded by books and bits of old crap you dug out of the ground.”

“Ma, I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do this right now. I’m tired and stressed, and...I’ll call you back soon, OK?”

She hung up. She gripped the phone tight in her fist, waiting for it to ring, feeling the strange discomfort of disappointment when it didn’t. She nearly called back to apologize, but she knew it wouldn’t be that simple, that she wouldn’t be permitted to say sorry and leave it at that. Her hanging up had been a reflex, like leaping out of the window of a burning building. She could call back, but the room would still be on fire. She turned the phone off and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans. Why had she thought calling her mother was a good idea? Everything had
been so strange lately, so inconclusive. Perhaps she had hoped that if she could resolve something in her personal life then the rest of the stuff she was wrestling with would feel more manageable.

Well, so much for that.

Deborah checked with the landlady and then walked down the narrow farm road and back toward the town, inhaling the cool, damp air with its smell of grass and the tang of manure. As she walked she tried to make sense of the letter from Edward Clifford to his mother—it didn’t seem quite right. “My honoured mother, for so I ever will think of you.” Did that mean she would always be dear to him, or that he would continue to think of her as his mother even though she wasn’t? If she wasn’t, how did he come to bear her coat of arms, albeit so curiously modified? The letter gave Deborah the sense that Edward’s self-imposed banishment—presumably to Mexico—was done in part to spare his “mother” further hardship. She was most tantalized by the reference to “the jewels I bear with me.” Could they be what was found in the Mayan tomb? The dates would fit, and it was not inconceivable that an Englishman could find his way to Mexico, particularly if he went via Spain and came across with colonists or as part of a religious mission.

She arrived at the Cross Gaits Inn and—feeling tired and in need of a little indulgence—ordered a Bombay Sapphire martini at the bar, very dry, two olives.

“A lady who knows her mind,” said the barman. “Don’t get much call for martinis around here.” She watched him pull down the gin. He was a heavyset man, but strong and broad shouldered. His complexion was pinkish and mottled and his shirt was dotted with sweat, but he had a confident, forthright air that
Deborah would have associated with blue-collar New York if he didn’t have that tough, teeth-baring Lancashire accent.

Deborah took a menu and chose a table by the window, carefully cradling her drink, smiling as she heard the next customer order two pints of bitter. Cocktails, apparently, weren’t the norm in Lancashire pubs. The pub was quiet and only two other tables were occupied. She ordered Chicken Tikka Masala and when the barman returned with her cutlery and condiments he asked her where she was staying. She told him Malkin Tower Farm and he smirked.

“Come to see the witches?” he said.

Deborah just looked baffled.

“Witches?” she said. “What witches?”

The barman paused to consider her.

“You serious?” he said. “The Pendle witches, of course.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with them,” she said.

“You didn’t know this was witch country?” He turned to the barmaid who had come to wipe off the table and said, “Chantelle, listen to this. She’s come all this way...America, right?”

“Right,” said Deborah, starting to feel like an exhibit in her own museum.

“All the way from America to Pendle, sightseeing, like, and has never heard of the Lancashire witches!”

Chantelle, a pale, moon-faced girl with streakily-dyed blonde hair, raised her eyebrows.

“Honest to God?” she asked.

“Honest to God,” said Deborah, smiling.

“We got witches all right,” said the barman, laughing. “Hold on, let me go get my wife.”

This was apparently a joke, and Chantelle laughed, as did the party who had ordered the pints of bitter. Deborah was becoming a celebrity.

“The year was 1612,” said the barman. “It started right here. Most famous witch trial in English history. Ten people executed in Lancaster for multiple murder by witchcraft, mainly on the testimony of a nine-year-old girl.”

“Jennet Device,” said the man who had ordered the bitter. He was in his twenties and wore round glasses that made him look bookish.

“Am I telling this story or are you, Neil?” said the barman to him.

“Get on with it, then,” said the man, grinning.

The barman took a seat opposite Deborah.

“It all started just down the road,” he said, “right where you’re staying.”

Nick Reese pressed the phone to his ear and squeezed his eyes shut. He had been dreading the call.

“Why the hell did you take the painting?” said the crisp English voice.

“Deborah Miller was in the building,” Nick answered, trying to sound composed. Trying to sound like he really believed that he hadn’t buggered the thing up. “She was clearly following a lead. She would have found her way to that room eventually. I thought that if I could prevent her from seeing the painting it would at least buy us some time.”

“But in fact,” the other interrupted, “it turns out that the theft of obscure old paintings makes them less obscure. It puts them, in fact, in every paper, local news bulletin, and webpage in the area.”

“The castle is a mausoleum and their filing system primitive in the extreme. I gambled that they wouldn’t have a file image ready to go.”

“As gambles go, it didn’t work out so well.”

“Not as such, no, sir,” said Nick, pacing irritably and trying to keep that irritation out of his voice. “But we don’t know that she actually saw the picture, and unless she is actively looking for it...”

“Nick, by your own admission, the woman is shrewd and resourceful. If she hasn’t seen the picture yet, she will very soon, either because it’s staring at her from the window of every TV showroom in the country or because she may just be capable of typing a couple of key words into Google.”

Nick took a breath but said nothing.

“Yes?” barked the voice, suddenly.

“Yes, sir,” he agreed.

“We have to assume she’s seen the painting. So?”

“So she’ll realize it is important because of the theft. But I don’t see how she can know as much as we do. We’re still way ahead.”

“Make sure it stays that way and be prepared to take drastic measures if the situation begins to change.”

“Absolutely,” said Nick, becoming still and straight. His training at the academy had prepared him to take drastic measures, as the person on the other end of the line well knew. Physically, he was still in great shape, as good as nearly a decade ago when he joined the force. But being capable of extreme measures and being comfortable with them were two different things.

“And you’re sure about the painting?”

“I’m going to double-check right now, sir,” said Nick. “I’ll call you back as soon as I know.”

He hung up and called Chad Rylands, unfurling the painting as he did so. He spread it out on the tabletop and pushed a book onto each corner to keep it flat. As Chad began to talk, Nick stared at the picture, specifically at one figure beneath Lady Anne, the face half obscured by the dark patina of centuries, and the soot from fireplaces and tallow candles.

“What did you hear from the lab about the finger bones?” he asked as soon as Rylands picked up.

“You were right,” said Chad, and there was a hint of wonder in his voice, along with something that might have been fear. “I don’t know how you were right, but you were. The bone itself was shorter than you would expect, even for someone born four hundred years ago, but it didn’t reveal much more than that. The lab was able to extract DNA evidence, however, and that’s where things get interesting.”

“Go on.”

“There was evidence of autosomal dominant mutation in fibroblast growth factor receptor gene three, almost certainly resulting in achondroplasia.”

“So the hand in the tomb,” said Nick, still staring at the painting, “was not a child’s.”

“Not a child’s, no.”

Reese stared at the portrait for another moment, slotting the evidence into place. He was getting close, but he wasn’t the only one, and that meant trouble.