“Yes.” Pedro had understood. And he had replied in English.
Together, they set off along the road.
THE HOLY CITY
Once again, Matt found himself in the main square at Ica, and this time they were even more nervous than they had been before. It was half past five in the morning but there were plenty of people around. It seemed to him that life began early in Peru. Even so, everything was quiet. There were no tourists yet. The money changers hadn’t come out. If anyone came searching for them, they wouldn’t be too hard to find.
Matt was fairly sure that Salamanda wouldn’t look for them here. As far as the man knew, they could be a hundred miles down the Pan-American Highway – the single road that ran the full length of the country. But Matt wasn’t taking any chances. He had left Pedro to buy the bus tickets for the next leg of their journey while he squatted in the shadows. He was crouching on the edge of the pavement, his arms wrapped around himself, pretending to be asleep. It wasn’t all pretence. He was exhausted. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going.
Pedro returned with the tickets and sat down next to him.
“Cuzco,” Matt said.
“Cuzco,” Pedro agreed and showed him the two slips of paper.
Matt hadn’t been certain that he would really buy them. He knew that Pedro would have preferred to continue south to the city of Ayacucho – where Sebastian and his friends would be waiting. As he took the tickets, Matt glanced at the other boy. Pedro didn’t look pleased by what he had done but he had evidently come to a decision. He was going to stay with Matt.
The two of them ate a quick breakfast of rolls and coffee, bought from a stall, then crept on board the bus at the last moment. By this time, almost every seat was taken and they had to sit apart. Not that it mattered, Matt thought to himself. When they were awake, they couldn’t talk anyway.
Cuzco.
It meant nothing to him. A name spoken by a dying man. It was a town… a city… it could be anywhere in Peru. He guessed it must be far away because the tickets had cost almost half their remaining money. As they set off, jolting through the half-empty main square, Matt looked across the aisle at Pedro who was sitting, cramped, next to the window on the other side of a plump, sweating man. What was he thinking? From the moment he had met Matt, his entire life had been thrown into turmoil. Despite everything, Matt was beginning to worry about him. Pedro had said nothing and shown little emotion since the death of the man called Micos. Of course, he was used to violence and sudden death. But he surely hadn’t been expecting so much more of it.
The Pan-American Highway was long and very straight, running through the landscape as if it had been cut with a knife. For the first couple of hours, there was no real view out of the window. The edges of the road were lined with rubbish – old tyres, pieces of plastic sheeting, tangled coils of wire and mounds of rubble that seemed determined to follow them every inch of the way. Matt had never been anywhere like this before. He had seen rubbish tips in England. There had been parts of Ipswich that were run down and depressing. But the poverty in this country was endless. It had spread like a disease.
The sun rose and suddenly it was hot. Matt looked around at the other passengers: a mixture of city people, farmers, Indians and – once again – animals. The woman sitting next to him was dressed in brilliant colours with a bright-red shawl tied around her neck and a floppy hat. Her skin looked like beaten leather. She could have been a hundred years old. She was examining him curiously and Matt wondered if she had seen through the skin dye, the clothes and the haircut and recognized the English boy underneath. He turned away, afraid she might try to speak to him.
Another hour passed. Then several more. It was impossible to tell how long he had been sitting there. Matt was thirsty. His mouth seemed to be full of dust and diesel fumes. He closed his eyes. Almost immediately he was asleep.
Once again they were back on the shore.
“We should have gone to Ayacucho,” Pedro said.
“I know. I’m sorry. Why did you decide to come along?”
“Because of the man who died. Micos. He died because he wanted to help us. And at the end, when he only had one breath left, he told us to go to Cuzco. It was that important to him. If we didn’t do as he said, his ghost would never forgive us.”
“Do you know anything about Cuzco?” Matt asked.
“Not much. Sebastian went there once and he didn’t like it. It’s a long way away… high up in the mountains. Sebastian told me that you can’t breathe properly because there isn’t enough air. A lot of tourists go there.” Pedro thought for a moment. “It’s not far from a place called Machu Picchu, which is where the Incas used to live.”
“What about the temple of Coricancha?
“I’ve never heard of it.”
The two of them sat in silence for a minute. But in this strange world, a minute could have been an hour or even a day.
“So who do you think he was?” Pedro asked. “He said his name was Micos but he didn’t tell us anything else. And what about the man with the big head? That was Salamanda.”
“Yes.” Matt shuddered.
“I’ve never seen anyone like him. I mean, there are people in Lima with no legs and no arms and stuff like that. You see it all the time. But he was a freak. A real freak. And he was evil. It was like it was oozing from him. He made me want to be sick.”
“Yes. I felt the same.”
Matt glanced at the boat with the cat’s-head prow. He thought that quite soon, he and Pedro must leave the dream island. There was a whole dream world to explore.
“Listen, Pedro,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about everything that’s been happening. It’s all happened so fast – the airport, meeting you, all the rest of it – I didn’t have a chance to work it out. But now I have. And maybe I’ve been stupid. I may have got it all wrong.”
He paused.
“Let’s start with Salamanda. He’s our enemy. He’s the one who wants to open the gate. He must have paid someone to kill William Morton and take the diary. But it wasn’t Salamanda who snatched Richard. He more or less told me that himself. He didn’t even know Richard had been kidnapped.”
“Then who…?”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking. Richard and I arrive in Lima and we’re met by a driver who says that he’s working for Fabian. He tells us his name is Alberto but he could have been anyone. He heads for a hotel where Captain Rodriguez and the police are waiting for us. We’re walking into a trap.
“But on the way, another bunch of people run into us. They shoot at the driver and try to grab us. They take Richard, but I get away.”
“They were trying to stop you! They didn’t want you to go to the hotel because they knew the police were there!”
Matt nodded. “That’s right. Micos was one of them. I recognized him at the hacienda. He was there, with them, in Lima. And last night, he must have followed us somehow to Salamanda’s place. Or maybe he was always waiting for me to show up.”
“Maybe he could have told you where your friend is.”
“I wish he’d told us more. Who he was. Who he was working for.”
“He didn’t know he was going to die.” Pedro thought for a moment. “This temple…”
“Coricancha. If we can find it, maybe we can find Richard.” Matt picked up a pebble and threw it into the sea. It made no sound as it hit the water. “How long will it take us to reach Cuzco?”
“They said twenty hours when I bought the tickets.”
“Well, if we can sleep most of the time, at least we can talk.”
“Yes.” Pedro frowned. “What about this place, Matteo? Where are we now? How come we can understand each other… and remember everything when we wake up?”
“I don’t know,” Matt said. “When I met you here on this island, I hoped you’d be able to tell me.”
“No chance. I don’t know anything about anything. I’m just me. I do juggling and I steal from tourists. It’s all a mystery, and how I got mixed up with you is the biggest mystery of all.”