Trick or Treat (32 page)

Someone—Saba, I supposed—had borrowed quite a large house on the hill overlooking the ceremonial ground. We shoved our swearing captive inside and three young men took her away from us, which was a mercy, because her long nails had ripped furrows in my ribs and she had made a spirited attempt to gouge one of my eyes out. Daniel had been kicked and was limping.

Inside was a large hall, full of people and lights, and I felt bewildered—I had been down in the Samhain dark so recently. A door opened into a cosy library where a large man was sitting in an easy chair, a cigar in his mouth, a small glass of port in his hand.

‘In here, dollink,’ said a familiar voice. I should have known.

‘You’re Saba?’

‘Three times over,’ said Uncle Solly, grinning. ‘You did good! Now Sarah will get you some first aid and some clothes

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and maybe a drink and we will sit down with the bad guys and make them tell us all about it. You did good,
metuka
,’ he said gently, touching a finger to my bloodied brow. ‘You too, Daniel. You’re a good boy. I’ll tell your mother, if you like.’

‘Please don’t,’ Daniel begged. ‘She’d only think I have been doing something dangerous.’

Sarah was a short plump cheerful girl with a full first aid kit and very sure hands. ‘You’re shocked,’ she told me. ‘Here’s sweet tea. Drink it while I have a look at these scratches. She must have had steel reinforced claws. Still, not too deep, no need for a stitch and she missed your eye.’

I drank the tea while she cleaned and patched my wounds and gave me a new blue windcheater to wear, in just my size, which argues that someone had done some good staff work. I was ushered back into the library where Uncle Solly held court. The nephews and cousins were there, all dressed in black. There was Janelle, and Eddie, and our captive, who had been tied to a convenient chair. There was Cypress and Cedar, sneering. Uncle Solly gave me a small glass of neat cognac and I sat down next to Daniel, who was looking as though someone had roughly scrubbed him and dressed him again without drying him. He was ruffled and gorgeous.

‘It was such a good idea,’ said Solly, in his warm, delighted voice. ‘So clever,
nu
? Find the treasure, yes, the good Petros did that, out with that old pirate Yanni. He could find it again, too. Grease enough palms and play the weather right and a clever diver could salvage the treasure. Ballast a boat with gold coins, yes, and the stolen gems.’

‘Petros?’ I asked.

‘Rocky,’ groaned Daniel. Cypress lifted a lip in his direction.

‘Cypress,’ he said. Cedar pressed closer to him, wondering what was happening, shivering. Cypress put an arm around him. ‘All right. I found the treasure that the old man didn’t

dare go back for. I dragged it up off the seabed.’

‘Brave,’ said Solly admiringly. ‘Then what?’

‘Barnabas came and talked to me about it. I don’t know how he knew. He was looking for the treasure too, had an old map. I bought a boat in Greece and Cedar and me and a student sailed her here—took us three months but we brought it here,’ he said, trying to look at the bound prisoner’s face. ‘I slid her into a boatyard in the dark, between two bright lights, when even the seabirds were sleeping and the sea was as flat as a plate. No one saw us. Then we scooped the gold out from under the ballast leads, a handful at a time, and Cedar took it to Bendigo in his backpack. That’s all she said we had to do. We did it. One-third of it is ours.’

‘No,’ said Solly. ‘It belongs to the dead, Cypress. The murdered ones who died in despair, calling on God. Who did not answer. Can’t you hear their voices wailing on the wind?’

Cedar shuddered and clung to Cypress. Their naked skin slid together.

Solly considered them. ‘I got an offer for you,’ he said, ‘because you didn’t hurt anyone, you just brought the treasure home. I’ll give you money—not a third of the treasure, but enough. You go north, eh? Where you have always wanted to go. Set up a little diving school in Cairns, say?’

‘And in return?’ the strong face twisted.

‘In return, you say nothing, eh? I let you go, you say nothing, you take your friend out of here, this is not a good place for him, and go home and pack.
Navarino
isn’t yours, it’s not a good boat anyway, you can buy better in the tropics. I got tickets,’ said Solly, taking them from a table and fanning them out. ‘Tickets, travelling money, settlement. You leave tomorrow. What say?’

277

There was a pause. Cypress looked at the sum offered. Yossi coughed. I scratched my sticking plaster. Then Cypress grinned, a wild, bold, flashing grin. ‘Deal,’ he said.

He took the documents, hefted Cedar, and Yossi led them out. We heard the front door close and a car drive away. Then the silence crept back. I could hear the sea again. I thought of Chrysoula, who could not sleep without hearing the sea.

‘You, Corinna,’ Saba said. ‘Tell us about the soul cakes.’

‘They were
pain maudit
,’ I said. ‘Meant to send people mad. They were never meant to be loosed on the streets. Someone thought they’d make a little extra money. They weren’t made with yeast, which takes time and skill. They were made with baking powder and ready after half an hour’s work with an unoccupied oven. They were meant to cover up a murder, and it was a really good idea, if unbelievably ruthless.’

‘Janelle?’ asked Uncle Solly.

‘No, it wasn’t Janelle,’ I said. My head ached. I extended my glass for another cognac. ‘Janelle knows all about manipu
lative men. It suited her to hang out with Barnabas’s girls, but she was never taken in by him.’

‘The witches were nice to me,’ stated Janelle firmly. ‘After all those years with Mum, do you think I am going to go with a big fat crook like Barnabas? Not a chance,’ she said. I could have applauded.

‘And what about Mr Wyatt?’ Daniel asked.

‘Or him,’ she said. ‘I’m going to Sydney with Celeste. She says she can give me a job and there’s a spare room in her house. She runs a tea shop. I’ll be all right,’ she said.

‘So you will,’ said Uncle Solly, nodding at Sarah, who escorted Janelle out. ‘Go back to the festival now, and the Goddess bless you—sorry, Lord,’ he addressed the heavens. ‘So was it you, then?’

Eddie Ramsgate was pushed forward. He hung his head. His pimples glowed like traffic lights.

‘She gave me the recipe and told me to bake them,’ he said. ‘I did as she said. She kissed me,’ he added. I was suddenly very sorry for Eddie. Beautiful women wouldn’t have kissed him a lot. And never would again, unless he won Tattslotto.

‘Eddie didn’t mean any harm,’ said Daniel. ‘At least, he didn’t know he was going to do any harm. He’s sorry.’

‘And he wanted the money for . . .?’ asked Uncle Solly.

‘His mum,’ I said.

‘It was her,’ protested Eddie, pointing to the prisoner. ‘She gave me the mix and told me to make cakes with it. I didn’t know there was any harm in them. She said they would be drugged, and Mum says people buy drugs at nightclubs, so I went along and sang the soul song.’

‘You sang it?’ I demanded.

He looked hurt. ‘My mum’s got all Fairport’s records, and Pentangle, and the others,’ he said, and began to sing: ‘Soul cake, a soul cake, please kind missus a soul cake, an apple, a pear, a plum or a cherry, any fine thing to make us all merry, one for Peter, one for Paul, one for him as made us all,’ in a fine, clear tenor.

‘Well, blow me down,’ said Daniel.

‘Me, too,’ I commented.

‘Eddie, you did the wrong thing,’ said Uncle Solly, ‘but you’re a good boy and we’ll say no more about it. Now off you go to your mum, and stay away from bad company.’

‘Okay,’ said Eddie. He left. I had no idea whether he had understood any of the proceedings.

Uncle Solly poured himself another glass of port and relit his cigar. ‘Tell us more,
metuka
,’ he said to me.

279

‘About the soul cakes? She must have been here for weeks. They were meant to drive the Samhain ceremony mad,’ I said. ‘They were meant to send everyone out on a trip, and cover up the murder of Barnabas by his—’

‘Daughter,’ shrieked the prisoner.

Georgiana Hope, nee Esperance, had not taken defeat well. Her eyes were wild, her hair torn, her face scratched. She was still beautiful, but beautiful like a mannequin, not like a human. The bones were perfect. The animating spirit was evil. It was Samhain, and some of the cold reek of death seemed to rise from Georgiana. Of course, we might have just dragged her through some stagnant marsh. I clung to the view that it was swamp water.

‘Barnabas is your father?’ asked Daniel.

‘He deserted us,’ she said. ‘He left us in utter poverty. My mother worked herself to death to keep me and my little brother. And you’ve let Cedar go with that pirate! I’ll never see him again!’

‘The fate of many,’ said Uncle Solly. ‘You decided to kill him? When did you find him again?’

‘Years and years ago,’ she said sullenly. ‘I found him on the web. Him and his acolytes and his girls, and my mother wearing her hands to the bone scrubbing floors so that I could go to school in one good dress! I worked hard, I won scholarships, I ran businesses, but she was never happy with me, she always said it should have been Cedric that had the business mind and he could rescue our fortunes. Even after I rescued them she was never content...’

‘So when Cedar met Cypress . . .?’ I hinted

‘He told me about the treasure. Barnabas had been in Germany and got some sort of map from the original thief. But Cypress had actually found the gold. Idiots. They were thinking of trying to sell it in Europe, where every transaction is supervised by some Jew. They would have been caught instantly.’

She sat up against her bonds and Yossi pushed the ragged hair back from her face. The goddess’s silver make-up was smeared across her shoulders and neck and fanned into her ears. She looked lopsided, grotesque.

‘A drink, maybe?’ asked Solly.

‘I won’t drink with you, filthy Jew,’ she spat at him.

‘Ah well, then, you can go thirsty,’ he shrugged.

‘Drink with me,’ I said. ‘I am in awe of your commercial acumen.’

She snarled at me, the rosebud mouth twisting over white canines. But she accepted water from me and sipped at it without actually trying to bite my hands.

‘What commercial acumen?’ asked Uncle Solly.

‘Uncle, give me one of your cigars.’ I had been off cigarettes for a long time but the scent of that Cuban cigar was more than I could bear. I took it and lit it and blew out a stream of smoke. Wonderful. I was immediately dizzy. ‘The soul cakes were just personal revenge. But we had the same problem—didn’t we, Daniel?—thinking why bring the treasure to Australia, and how is it to be sold? And the answer was so clever. What is Australia known for? Minerals. You set up a mining company in, as it might be, Bendigo, where there is still plenty of gold under the ground, and then you set up a nice little smelter and...’

‘Melt it down,’ said Sarah, clasping her hands in front of her bosom. ‘Oh, that is clever.’

‘It’s exactly the same as laundering money,’ I said. ‘But heavier and harder, of course.’

‘How did you find out?’ asked Daniel.

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‘I asked the Benson wunderkind on the stock exchange to swap me some names of directors for Jason’s muffins.’

‘Nice,’ Uncle Solly approved. ‘
Nu
, what are we to do with you, eh? You have killed one person and injured others, though that was not your intention. You have corrupted several people. You have tried to kill Corinna’s business.’

‘Why did you want Earthly Delights so much?’ I asked.

‘Because it’s yours and you love it,’ she snapped.

‘And the snake?’

‘What snake?’

‘I know you sent it,’ I told her. ‘There was a smudge of bush spices on the back of the threatening letter. And your signature scent. Poison.’

‘A little present,’ she sneered, giving up.

Solly sipped his port and spoke again: ‘But you didn’t actually do too much harm, and you have been instrumental in retrieving most of the treasure of Salonika. We have seized the office of the company in Bendigo and the boat, and of course the stash in Williamstown. Pity that clumsy Cedar dropped things like the ephod out of his backpack while he was unloading, eh?’

‘Idiots,’ muttered Georgiana Hope.

‘We could call the cops,’ said Uncle Solly.

‘And I could tell all about you and Mossad,’ said Georgie.

‘No you couldn’t, because it is well known that Mossad does not exist,’ said Uncle Solly. ‘I run a deli. All of the local policemen eat there. I do not think you would be believed. But here is a problem,’ he appealed to the room. ‘What do we do with her, eh?’

‘I know a real deep pool,’ said Yossi.

This idea, I had to admit, had great appeal to me. This bitch of a woman had tried to ruin my business, steal my Daniel, had corrupted poor Eddie and been responsible for one death and several irreparable injuries. I had not forgotten the young man with no hands.

‘I like that idea,’ I said.

‘You would,’ she said, cold as venom. ‘You’ve got it all, haven’t you? You’ve got Daniel.’

‘You could have had him too, you saw him first,’ I told her. ‘You only wanted him because I had him.’

‘I never wanted him at all,’ she said slowly.

‘No?’ I arched an eyebrow. It hurt. I stopped arching it.

‘I wanted Saba,’ she said. ‘And Danny knew who Saba was.’

‘Ach, no, now, now,’ said Uncle Solly. ‘Suddenly this moves from being a treasure hunt with added spleen to a nasty political thing,
nu
?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said.

‘In that case,’ said Saba, ‘Yossi, where is your pool?’

‘No, really,’ I protested.

Every pair of eyes in the room looked at me in surprise. I felt myself in an alien universe. Surely they didn’t mean to kill her?

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.

‘You want to know?’ Uncle Solly smiled at me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘On balance, I am involved in this, I want to know.’