The Mask of Destiny (24 page)

Sam and Ruby were waiting, just as they'd arranged, by a fountain in a piazza. Children splashed in the shallow water, shrieking with delight. The square was teeming with tourists and locals taking in the warm evening air.

‘Here you go,' Gerald said. He handed Sam and Ruby a thousand euros in cash each.

Sam's eyes bulged. ‘Where did you get that?'

‘Billionaire,' Gerald said. ‘Remember?'

‘I'm hardly going to forget,' Sam said as he folded the money into his pocket. ‘But I thought you weren't going to use your credit card.'

‘I wasn't going to. But then I passed an American Express office and thought, why not? Jarvis knows we're in Rome, so there's no harm using it here. And I told the teller I needed the money for a trip to Portugal. That should buy us some time. So, did you guys make your phone call?'

Ruby screwed up her face. ‘Yeah. Mum was pretty upset—glad to hear from us and everything. But worried.'

‘Did you tell her what we agreed?'

‘She left that to me,' Sam said.

‘I can't lie to my own mother,' Ruby said. ‘Even for you, Gerald.' Her cheeks flushed and she turned away to look at the children playing in the fountain.

‘Lucky for us I have no such issues,' Sam said. ‘They're convinced we're on our way to Russia.'

‘Great,' Gerald said. ‘Between that and Portugal, Jarvis should have no idea where to look. Now we just have to get to Brindisi.'

Ruby let out a light sob.

‘What is it?' Gerald asked.

Ruby's chin was on her chest and her eyes were closed. ‘This better be important, Gerald. I'm letting down a lot of people here.'

Gerald put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. ‘You don't have to come,' he said. ‘You can be on a plane home tonight if you want.'

Ruby wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffed.

‘Nah. Can't bail out now and leave you behind, can I? Besides,' she sniffed again, ‘I've never been on a ferry.'

Chapter 17

B
y the time the battered Kombi van rattled into the Athens bus station, Gerald had lost all feeling in his buttocks.

The side door opened and he rolled out onto the buckled concrete driveway.

‘Numb bum,' he said, jumping on the spot to get the blood flowing again. ‘Numb bum.'

Ruby insisted on giving the three Swedish backpackers they'd hitched a ride with a one-hundred-euro note.

‘Please take it,' she said. ‘You've been so helpful.'

Sofia accepted the money with a summer-tanned smile. She hugged Ruby and they all waved farewell as the van coughed and pulled into the choking Athens traffic.

It had been three days since Gerald, Ruby and Sam had left Rome and they were living the backpacker dream. They'd taken a bus to Brindisi, and there had been no sign of Inspector Jarvis or any incidents with the Italian police. From Brindisi they caught a ferry to Greece, retracing the route taken by Quintus and his sons more than sixteen hundred years before.

On the ferry they met Sofia, Anna and Malena.

‘I reckon Sofia was keen on me,' Sam said, still waving as the van disappeared from view.

Ruby shook her head. ‘There's no delusion like self-delusion,' she said. She pulled her backpack onto her shoulders. ‘Come along. Let's see if anyone can help us get to Skiron.'

The bus terminal bore the effects of years in the Athens sun. Traffic grime caked the outside walls and weeds endured stubbornly in the cracks in the paving. A dozen stray cats of all colours and patterns lay spread-eagled in whatever shade they could find.

Ruby pushed on the glass door and they walked into the squat terminal building. It was almost deserted. A couple sat at a round table, their suitcases nearby, and sipped on small cups of coffee. An elderly man dozed, propped in a chair in the corner. Another man, alert to the newcomers, wandered up and offered to sell them lottery tickets. When Ruby declined, he shrugged and went back to his seat by the window.

Sam eyed a cafe at the far end of the room, and a glass case stuffed with pastries. ‘Why don't you go ask at the information desk while I find us some lunch,' he said.

Gerald watched his friend saunter over to the cafe. ‘Does he ever not think of food?'

Ruby looked across at her brother and gave a shrug. ‘Only when he's eating,' she said.

The information desk had a few faded posters of islands and beaches stapled to the front, and some curled postcards tacked to the wall. Ruby picked up a tourist map from a stack on the counter. It was coated in a thin film of dust. A woman sat behind the desk, chewing gum. She was engrossed in a novel and didn't look up.

‘Hello,' Ruby began, ‘we're trying to find a town called Skiron. Can you help?'

The woman snapped her gum. The expression on her face didn't need translating. She glanced over at a group of men who were clustered around a table at the far end of the depot.

She shouted out to them in Greek. One of the men yelled something back. She responded with another shout.

‘What's going on?' Gerald asked Ruby.

‘Not sure,' she said. The verbal volleys grew in intensity.

‘They must be related.' It was Sam, back from the cafe. His cheeks were covered in pastry flakes. ‘Want some?' He held out a bag of triangle-shaped delicacies. Gerald and Ruby munched in silence while the shouting continued.

Finally, the woman picked up her novel and jerked her head in the direction of her opponent. ‘He will take you,' she said, returning to her book. ‘Taxi.'

‘Is Skiron close by?' Gerald said.

‘Quite close—maybe thirty minutes from here.' The voice belonged to a tall man who had ventured across from the group in the corner. He extended a hand towards the door. ‘My taxi is out the front.'

In the forecourt stood a car that looked like a refrigerator box on wheels. Its front bumper was held in place with duct tape. The hubcaps were missing and the bonnet was almost rusted through. The taxi was parked under a scraggly tree and the mottled shadows made it look even more like the subject of a machine-gun attack.

‘We're seriously getting in that thing?' Sam said.

Ruby studied the vehicle from under an arched eyebrow. ‘It does look a bit rattly.'

Gerald grabbed a door handle and pulled. He nearly jerked his shoulder from its socket. The door didn't budge.

‘You need to use your hip,' the driver said. He thumped into the side of the car and lifted the handle at the same time, jolting the door free.

Gerald peered inside. A faded blanket was spread across the back seat; a corner was scrunched up to reveal torn vinyl and disintegrating padding underneath. Asleep in the middle of the blanket was a large ginger cat.

‘Um,' Gerald said, looking back at the driver.

The man frowned at the backseat and clicked his tongue. He reached in and grabbed a handful of ginger fur at the back of the cat's neck and hauled it out. The cat was dumped under the tree. It took two steps then flopped onto its side in the shade.

‘It's times like this that I miss Mr Fry,' Sam said. They piled into the back of the taxi.

The driver dropped behind the wheel and the car lurched to the side, the springs groaning under the shift of weight. ‘You want to see Skiron, yes?'

The taxi engine fired into life and they edged away from the bus station into the packed Athens traffic. The driver introduced himself as Christos and kept up a steady travelogue as they wound through the centre of town.

Under the relentless summer sun, the inside of the car was stifling. ‘Do you have air conditioning?' Sam asked. ‘It's roasting back here.'

‘You have a choice,' Christos said, glancing at Sam in the rearview mirror. ‘If the air is on, the car is off. This way is better, I think.' He wound down his window and a hot gust blasted the back of the taxi. ‘Nice breeze.'

Sam flopped back into the seat. ‘What are we going to do when we get to Skiron?' he said. ‘It's not like we have any idea what we're looking for.'

Ruby leaned her arms on the top of the front seat. ‘Is Skiron very big?' she asked the driver.

‘Big?' Christos said, sounding surprised. ‘No. Not very big. The same as the others.'

‘The others?' Gerald said, but Christos didn't reply.

Twenty minutes later they pulled off the main road and entered a twisting maze of narrow laneways, bordered on each side by whitewashed buildings with front doors opening right onto the street.

Christos drove into a small square and pulled over to the side of the road. An imposing hill, rocky and sparsely treed, towered above them. An ancient building was perched on top.

‘What do you make of that?' Gerald asked Sam.

Sam blinked up at the building's white columns, stark against the brilliant blue of the sky.

‘Isn't that the Acropolis?' Sam asked.

‘That's right,' Christos said. ‘The birthplace of democracy.'

‘But,' Sam said, ‘isn't the Acropolis in Athens?'

There was an awkward silence.

‘We're in Athens,' Christos said. ‘Where did you think we were?'

‘You were meant to take us to Skiron,' Sam said.

The taxi driver turned in his seat and stared at Sam, Ruby and Gerald.

‘Skiron isn't a place,' he said. ‘Skiron is a person.'

‘A person?'

‘Yes,' Christos said. He twisted in his seat to point out the window. ‘He's over there.'

Gerald led the exit from the back of the car. His eyes followed the direction of Christos's pointed finger, towards a large block of land that was overgrown with weeds and wildflowers and strewn with the remnants of ancient buildings. At one end—the target of Christos's finger—stood an eight-sided building.

‘What? Does he live in there?' Sam said.

Christos regarded him evenly. ‘You're not the smartest boy alive, are you? That's the Tower of the Winds.'

Gerald's jaw dropped. Had he heard right?

‘There's a Tower of the Winds in Athens?'

‘Of course,' Christos said. ‘It's been here for two thousand years. Go and have a look.'

Gerald looked to Ruby. ‘Why not?' she said. ‘We've come this far.'

Gerald paid the fare and Christos turned the taxi in a tight circle. ‘Say hello to Skiron for me,' he called out the window as he motored out of the square.

A spiked iron fence ran around the outside of an area about the size of a soccer pitch. It was littered with broken columns and chunks of castoff marble. Stray cats poked their heads above the clumps of grass and weed, playing tigers in the grass. Gerald walked up to a ticket booth and bought three passes from the elderly woman sitting inside. ‘Uh, Skiron?' he asked.

The woman poked a thumb towards the white marble tower at the end of the block.

‘This must be it,' Gerald said. He increased his pace across the stony ground. ‘This must be what the clues have been leading us to.'

Sam and Ruby rushed to keep up with him.

‘I wish I shared your confidence,' Sam said.

‘What do you mean?'

‘The taxi driver said Skiron was a person, right?'

‘Yeah.'

‘And we found out about him from a painting in the Tower of the Winds in the Vatican, right?'

‘Yeah,' said Gerald, this time with less certainty.

‘A painting done four or maybe five hundred years ago.'

‘Um…'

‘And you're thinking this Skiron bloke has been hanging around here since then, on the off chance that you might pop by for a chat?'

‘Sam?' Gerald said.

‘Yeah?'

‘Shut up, will you?'

They reached the tower and gazed up at its smooth marble walls. The eight sides rose twelve metres or so and were capped by a conical roof. A man in dusty blue overalls was sweeping a path that ran around the base of the tower.

‘What do you think?' Ruby said. ‘Could it be him?'

Sam snorted. ‘He must be the oldest cleaner in Athens then.'

‘Weren't you shutting up?' Ruby said.

Gerald gave a determined nod and walked up to the man. ‘Excuse me?' he said.

The man stopped sweeping and looked at Gerald. He did seem incredibly old. ‘Yes?'

‘Skiron?' Gerald asked, his eyes widening.

The man looked at Gerald as if he hadn't heard him quite right. Then a smile spread across his face. ‘Skiron,' the man said with a slow nod.

Gerald was astounded. Could this possibly be the man mentioned in a five-hundred-year-old painting?

‘You…' Gerald started. ‘You're Skiron?'

The man nodded again. ‘Skiron.' Then he pointed to the top of the tower behind them. ‘Skiron.'

Gerald looked closely at the upper portion of the building. Each of the eight walls was topped with a carving, a frieze, showing a man in the midst of some activity.

Gerald had a sinking feeling in his gut. ‘One of those guys is Skiron?' he asked.