Treasured Dreams (28 page)

Rosalina too was at her new favourite place on the yacht, behind the barbeque. Bacon sizzled and the aroma had Archer's stomach growling to attention. He led Helen to the bar and helped her onto one of the bar stools.

Archer walked towards the barbeque with his mind set on pinching a few slices of that crispy bacon. ‘Hey Arch,' Rosalina said, ‘I forgot to tell you, yesterday afternoon your mum mentioned that a man by the name of David Clementine was asked to look after the Dancing Princess for her. Helen was wondering if he still had it.'

He paused before the bacon and turned back to his mother. ‘Really, Mum? That'd be fantastic. I was only telling Rosalina about the Dancing Princess recently. So who's David Clementine?'

‘He was one of your father's boating friends. I think they were in the navy together.'

Archer stopped his attack on the bacon and walked back to his mum. ‘Dad was in the navy?'

‘Yes. For about ten years. He was very handsome in his uniform.' Her cheeks flushed. ‘He stood out in a crowd like a flashing lighthouse.'

‘Ha. I never knew that about Dad.' That was a side of his father he would never have guessed. From his memory, his dad had always been very carefree and unorganised—he couldn't picture him living the regimented life of a navy man.

‘It was well before you came along,' Helen said. ‘The navy was where he fell in love with a life on the sea.'

Alessandro came over with a towel wrapped around his hips. ‘
Scusami,
Archer, how long before we
arrivare
at The Maldives?'

‘Should be about two or three this afternoon.'

‘I was wondering if now would be a good time to review Wade's notes together.'

Archer shrugged. ‘Sure. Set it up and we'll have a look after breakfast.'

Alessandro cleared his throat. ‘Would you like to help, Helen?'

Archer watched for his mum's reaction. She wasn't always keen on dragging up the past, but yesterday had been one of her most receptive days yet and Alessandro probably wanted to capitalise on that.

Helen nodded. ‘I'll try. My memory isn't like it used to be.'

Archer put his hand on her arm. ‘You're doing great, Mum.'

Breakfast, as usual, was delicious—bacon, eggs, grilled mushrooms stuffed with buffalo mozzarella and pine nuts, his favourite ham-flavoured baked beans, and toasted Turkish bread lavished with real butter. It hadn't been until he'd started eating that he'd realised how hungry he was.

Straight after breakfast, Jimmy left to go to the bridge to set them on course again, and the rest of them moved downstairs to the lounge area where Alessandro had the space set up like a military strategy room. He'd gathered some chairs around, taped a giant map to the window, and put the whiteboard at the front of the seating area. Five of Archer's father's notebooks were laid out on the table and there were several of his boxed up things centred on the floor. Everyone sat except for Alessandro, who, as Archer had expected, stood up before them like a teacher at the head of a class.

Alessandro cleared his throat. ‘Okay, we'll start by reviewing the five notebooks that supposedly contain
informazioni
on the Solomon Islands. Conveniently, that means one for each of us.' Alessandro handed them out. Archer grabbed his and flicked over the front cover to the four countries. Japan. Turkey. Spain. Costa Rica. He turned to the middle pages and noted he had book number nineteen.

‘What I want you to do is call out anything that looks significant, and I know that's cryptic because we haven't established what we're searching for yet. But'—he pointed his whiteboard marker like a magic wand—‘I'm anticipating that between these books and all the paraphernalia in Wade's boxes, we will be able to match some clues together.' He wriggled his bushy eyebrows.

‘This is going to be fun,' Ginger said in an adolescent high-pitched voice.

‘So Alessandro,' Helen said, ‘for example, I have a donkey on my second page. I don't see the relevance of it, but is that the sort of thing you want me to tell you?'

Alessandro shrugged. ‘It will be difficult to know what is
importante
and what's not. So I'll write “donkey” on the board and see if it coincides with anything later.'

‘I wonder if it's a reference to that time Dad and I rode the donkeys in Santorini, Mum. Do you remember me telling you about that? When he bought you that pearl necklace.'

‘Yes, I remember, but I don't know if it's relevant.' Helen touched the pearls at her neck. The necklace that had been found in his dad's things was meant to be a birthday present twenty years ago. Helen had only received it recently when Archer found the still-wrapped gift in one of his father's boxes.

‘I have a fish.' Ginger turned it around for the group to see, and Alessandro wrote
fish
on the board.

Archer flicked over his pages. The first page had a paragraph of his father's rugged scrawl, which he read it to himself. It was a description of a poison ring, which was also referred to as a pillbox ring. The ring was designed to contain something hidden under a decorated lid. A passing glance wouldn't reveal the little hinges that lifted the lid to expose whatever was hidden beneath. Throughout history, they'd been used to carry perfume, locks of hair, messages, keepsakes and poison.

‘I have a paragraph on a poison ring.' Archer went on to summarise what it was as Alessandro wrote it on the board.

‘I've got a drawing of a button,' said Rosalina.

Alessandro clicked his fingers. ‘Remember? We found a brass button in Wade's things.' Alessandro reached for his laptop, and after a couple of seconds, he glanced over the top. ‘Box number twenty-three.' His eyes fell to the boxes, presumably looking at the numbers Alessandro had written on the lids. ‘Not here. Of course it's not here.' He strode off, and Archer assumed he was going to the Moreton room where the rest of the boxes were stacked up.

Archer flicked over the page in his book to reveal a chart. At the top were three large Cs. The first column had a list of names, none of them he recognised. The first one was Allnatt, and beneath each column headed with a C, Wade had written
101, yellow, cushion
. The next one was
Beau
then
34, colourless and pear
. The list went on and on, and Archer had no idea what it meant until the line that had
Blue Heart, 103, blue, brilliant
. That was when he realised he was looking at a list of famous diamonds. The Cs at the top were carat, colour, and cut.

Alessandro returned, carrying box number twenty-three. He lowered it to the floor and began removing the items from the carton and placing them around him on the carpet. ‘Here it is.' He held up the button like he was presenting a precious artefact.

‘What does it mean?' Ginger grinned like a bride on her wedding night.

Alessandro's shoulders sagged. ‘I don't know.' He looked down at the button. ‘Hey Ginger, this looks like a Japanese symbol.' He handed her the button.

‘It is,' Ginger's eyes gleamed. ‘It's
Awa Maru
.'

Archer glanced at his mother. ‘Mum, do you remember where Dad found this button?'

‘Yes, I do.' She rolled her eyes with exaggeration. ‘The Solomon Islands. He dragged me into the jungle to see a museum.' She scrunched up her nose. ‘It wasn't really a museum, but this fellow had been collecting bits and pieces he'd been finding in the dense vegetation around him for decades. He had plane parts, rusted machine guns, ammunition, helmets, dog tags, bottles …' She sighed. ‘Everything you'd expect to find in the aftermath of war.' Her voice was slow. Every word was measured. ‘That's where Wade found the button. I remember he was ridiculously excited when he saw it.' She shook her head. ‘I can't remember why though.'

‘I'm guessing the button belonged to the only survivor of the
Awa Maru
's sinking, Kimoda Yukimura.'

Alessandro was at his whiteboard again. ‘Which means that Kimoda made it back to the Solomon Islands after the war.'

‘And there's only one plausible reason why he'd return there rather than his homeland,' Archer said. ‘Treasure.'

Alessandro wrote
button
in big letters on the board.

‘My turn,' Ginger said. ‘I've got a woman with lots of red hair and a ghost.'

‘What?' Archer chuckled. ‘Show me.'

She turned the book towards them and sure enough, there was a woman drawn in pencil, but a red pen had been used to give her an exaggerated head of red hair. Beside her was a floating sheet with eyes, like the type of ghost a child would draw. After some thought, Archer gave up trying to work out what these two could mean. In the end, he shrugged them off as one of his father's decoys.

Jimmy strode into the room. The poor bugger looked completely exhausted. His eyes were puffy and his hair scrambled in all directions. It wasn't surprising, considering between the two of them they'd been alternating eight-hour shifts for twelve days. ‘Hey boss. We're pulling into port now.'

Archer rose to his feet and put his book on the chair. ‘Pack up, guys, just in case someone needs to come on board.'

He made his way to the bridge and the first thing he noticed was the glorious ocean surrounding them. Its intense turquoise colour indicated it was fairly shallow with a sandy bottom and so very very clean. Islands were dotted all around, and the temptation to pull up anchor at any one of them was overwhelming. But Archer needed to focus on the job at hand before they settled in for some down time.

The previous day, he'd forwarded all necessary information to the Maldives Port Authority and they were expecting
Evangeline
to arrive. So first stop was to show themselves at the port and register arrival. After that, it was refuelling via the fuel barge, and then stocking up on fresh food and gas supplies.

It was nearly three in the afternoon when Archer found the nice secluded island he'd pre-determined as ideal and nestled
Evangeline
in a convenient horseshoe-shaped bay. He dropped anchor, turned off engines that deserved a good rest, and went in search of Rosalina.

He found her in the galley, cleaning out the fridge, and he snuck up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. ‘Hey gorgeous. Want to come for a walk along the beach?'

She beamed when she turned to face him. ‘Oh, I'd love that.'

‘Get your bikini on then. We have to swim there.' He turned her away from the kitchen and gave her a light smack on the bottom. ‘Meet me at the dive deck.'

Archer plucked the fins, snorkels and masks off their hooks in the equipment cupboard and laid them out on the deck. Rosalina arrived in a blue string bikini that showed off her flawless olive skin and her womanly curves. She'd overlaid the bikini with a white cotton shirt that she'd tied at her hips. Her hair caught in the sunlight, shimmering shades of auburn and expensive brandy. It cascaded over her shoulders to nudge her delicious bulging breasts. Just the sight of her took his breath away.

‘This is gorgeous.' Her eyes were hidden behind her sunglasses, yet she shielded them from the sun with her hand and took in the view.

‘I know. It's incredible. Give me your things.'

He placed her shirt and sunglasses into a water-tight bag, along with his glasses, and sealed it up. Working almost simultaneously, they tugged their masks to their necks and with their fins in their hands, they jumped in. The water was just the right temperature, not too hot that it was like a bath tub, and not too cold to produce goose pimples. They tugged their masks and fins into place, and then Archer reached for her hand and together they kicked towards the shore.

Beneath the water was a diver's fantasy land. Coral gardens of all shapes and sizes created a colourful landscape as far as he could see. Fish were in abundance. Black-and-white striped fish the size of his hand were having a party in and around white spikey coral. A school of orange and yellow Damsel fish with a black dot on their tailfins hid within the tentacles of giant purple coral balls with green fingers that wafted in the current.

Rosalina pointed out a long banana-yellow Trumpetfish that was reversing into a narrow hole in the coral. Below it, nestled within the sand was a stingray—only its eyes were visible. As they neared, it popped up and scooted along with its tail drifting behind it. A giant school of blue fin trevally parted ways as the couple swam into their enormous school.

Archer spied a black tip reef shark in the distance and tugged on Rosalina's hand to point it out. They stopped kicking and drifted as the shark glided with elegant swings of its tail towards them. Behind the shark were four more, each one seemingly oblivious to their existence. The first shark came within two metres of them, but glided on past and kept on going. The four others did the same, and once they'd completely disappeared, Rosalina and Archer resumed kicking towards the shore.

A small turtle, about the size of a dinner plate, led the way for them, gliding its fins through the water to propel himself along. At one point it stopped, hovering in the water to look around, and the lime green and grey platelet pattern on its fins was highlighted by the sun. It turned to them, blinked a few times, then, apparently deciding they were uninteresting, it moved on.

As soon as Archer's knees hit the sand, he tugged off his fins and hooked them over his wrist, then stood up. Water shimmered off Rosalina's body as she rose up beside him like a movie temptress.

‘That was magic.' She ran her hand through her wet hair.

‘I agree.' He reached for her fins and then held her hand so they could walk out of the water together. ‘Shall we walk along the beach?'

‘Yes please.'

He put their things in the shadow of a large palm tree and removed her shirt and their sunglasses from the waterproof bag. He also removed a white towel and his favourite Hawaiian shirt.