She looked up, startled. A man had appeared at her table, beaming warmly down at her, rocking back on his heels. Without his uniform on, it took her a moment to recognise him: Andriama, Tulear’s chief of police. She stared at him in horror. Mustafa was about to arrive with the money, and the kidnappers should already have contacted her. And if any of them saw her talking with this man, it would wreck her chances of getting Adam and Emilia back alive.
THIRTY-THREE
I
Knox arrived at the foot of the steps to find himself in a large room of much the same size and shape as the boathouse above, tall enough that he could only just touch its ceiling with his fingertips. To his immense relief, there were no horrors waiting for him. In fact, the place looked rather dull. A dehumidifier and an air-conditioning unit stood at the far end. There was metal-rack shelving against the near wall, wooden bookshelves against the far, and a spine of processing tables running down the middle, fitted with power-points for computers and other equipment, buttressed by a three-drawer filing cabinet. The top two drawers were empty, but hanging folders in the bottom contained salvage licences, correspondence and contracts with MGS, and a report Emilia had written about her visit to England in which she noted the promises of secrecy she’d exacted from all MGS project members. Knox couldn’t have asked for a better way to explain himself to Rebecca than by bringing her here and giving her this to read.
He put it back, glanced at the shelves either side of him. He could see the books he’d given Emilia on the treasure fleets and on underwater archaeology, along with rows of other textbooks and printed out articles. But it was the metal shelving that drew him. Most of the racks were empty, awaiting the start of salvage. But there were a dozen or so white plastic tubs, a few boxes too. The first tub contained several handfuls of silver pieces-of-eight; but that was the only sign of the Winterton he found. Everything else was distinctively Chinese or impossible to attribute. Tubs of shattered ceramics sat next to others of rusted nails, ironwork and Ming coins. Elsewhere, several pieces had somehow survived largely intact. Most were rough-and-ready coarse-ware, but two were of a different order altogether. With great care, Knox picked up a blue-and-white bowl, turned it around in his hands. It was as fine a piece of eggshell porcelain as he’d ever seen, let alone handled. And it was flawless, as far as he could tell, without chip or crack, only the very slightest discolouration in the exquisitely painted pomegranates, grapes and lychees that decorated its exterior. One quite similar had sold for over two million dollars at auction a year or so before. Cheung had kept gloating about it, how rich they were all going to be. And here this was, just sitting on a shelf.
He set it down, picked up an enamelled flask instead, gorgeously decorated with dragons front and back. He walked a little further on. At the end of the shelf, he found an ornately carved wooden box filled with tissue paper. He pulled it aside to expose a fragment of black ceramic. His heart began to race a little as he reached in and carefully picked it up. It was evidently of a kneeling man, though he was missing his head and his feet and much of the left side of his body. A broken stem protruded a millimetre or so from his back. It wasn’t the piece itself that so shook him, however. It was the style of it. Because it didn’t look Chinese at all.
It looked Chimu.
II
Rebecca glared at Andriama, hoping that hostility might send him on his way; but he didn’t even seem to notice as he pulled out a chair for himself and sat down, raised his hand for a waiter, called out for a hot chocolate and a pastry. ‘You’re here early today,’ he said. ‘You stay last night in Tulear, perhaps?’
Rebecca had passed a police checkpoint on her way in. They were so common in Madagascar, she hadn’t given it a second thought. Yet something in Andriama’s manner made her suspect that this meeting was no accident. ‘I’ve just come from Eden,’ she told him.
‘From Eden?’ He pretended surprise. ‘You must have set off early.’
‘Yes.’
‘You bring me perhaps the blood information for your father and sister? Perhaps that is why you come so early?’ Rebecca had forgotten about that. She rummaged through her bag for the slip of paper Therese had given her, passed it across. Andriama studied it briefly, then frowned in genuine perplexity.
‘What is it?’ asked Rebecca.
Andriama glanced up at her. ‘We find two blood-types on the boat,’ he said. ‘One blood they tell me is woman blood. Two blood they tell me is man blood. I do not understand how they know this blood is man blood and that blood is woman blood, but they assure me-’
‘It’s to do with chromosomes,’ said Rebecca.
‘Yes,’ smiled Andriama. ‘That is what they assure me.’ He set down the paper she’d given him, tapped it significantly. ‘This woman blood matches your sister.’
‘But the male blood doesn’t match my father’s?’
‘Exact!’ Andriama beamed like a proud teacher. ‘This is strange. I think for sure this will be your father’s blood. It is AB negative blood. According to my doctors, you do not find this AB negative blood at all among Malagasy men. You do not find much in foreigners, either, but never in Malagasy.’
‘It’s rare?’
‘Yes! Exact! It is rare. It is rare foreigner’s blood.’ He smiled wolfishly, and she saw his shrewdness suddenly, why he’d become a policeman, how he’d made his way up through the ranks. ‘You tell me maybe who it come from, this rare foreigner’s blood?’
Rebecca shrugged. ‘Pierre?’
Andriama shook his head. ‘No. We know already the blood of Monsieur Desmoulins. This is not it.’
‘You know Pierre’s blood?’
‘Oh yes. For sure we know Monsieur Desmoulins and his blood.’ He gave her a mischievous smile. ‘He is sometimes our guest after his nights out in Tulear, you know.’ His order arrived. He clapped his hands with delight, plopped four rough sugar-lumps into his hot chocolate, then took a huge bite from his pastry, leaving his lips glossy with icing.
‘How about the South Africans who found the boat?’ asked Rebecca. ‘Maybe the blood came from one of them.’
‘No. We ask already. Is not them.’
‘Eden often has foreign guests,’ said Rebecca. ‘So does Pierre.’
‘You will give me perhaps a list of visitors?’
‘Of course. Next time I’m in Tulear. Now if you’ll excuse me-’
‘Anyone else?’
‘No. Not that I can think of.’
‘But you are seen in Tulear yourself with a foreigner two nights ago. A tall man. English, I’m told.’
‘Daniel?’ For some reason, even the suggestion made Rebecca freeze a little. ‘No.’