To the Hilt (37 page)

It was Ivan’s race. Ivan’s day. Nothing would comfort her.

Patsy arrived, with Surtees. Patsy’s manner to her husband was impatient: she was looking at him with the fresh cold eyes of disillusion. I would give that marriage another year at most, I thought. The Surtees looks wouldn’t forever make up for the void inside.

Golden Malt looked splendid on the turf, but he faced no easy task: the generous money prize alongside the prestige of taking home the King Alfred Gold Cup, even in replica, had drawn out the best. Of the nine proven fast steeplechasers lining up, Golden Malt was generally counted only fourth or fifth in the hierarchy.

White knuckle time. Emily watched the start through raceglasses without trembling. Probably no one else in the box could have managed it. Emily stood rock-still for nearly all of the two miles.

It was one of those races at Cheltenham when neither the fences nor the undulating curves sorted the runners out into a straggling line: all nine runners went round in a bunch, no one fell, the crowd on the grandstands yelled and drowned out the commentator, and Golden Malt came round the last bend in close fourth place and headed for glory up the hill.

Emily put down her raceglasses and breathlessly watched.

Himself was shouting with powerful lungs. My mother clasped her hands over her heart.

Patsy murmured, “Oh, come
on
. . .”

Three horses crossed the line together.

One couldn’t tell by eye which head had nodded forwards. We all went down to the unsaddling area for first, second and third, and none of the little group could disguise the agony of the wait for the photograph.

When the result came it was in the impersonal voice of the course announcer.

“First, number five.”

Number five: Golden Malt.

There was a lot of kissing. Patsy gave me an uncomplicated smile, with no acid. Emily’s eyes outshone the stars.

Patsy had ordained that the trophy should be presented to the winning owner by my mother, as Ivan’s wife; so it happened that at the ceremony my mother presented the replica of the King Alfred Gold Cup to Emily, to universal cheers and a blaze of flashing cameras.

Ivan would have loved it.

 

 

When my mother and I were placidly breakfasting and reading congratulatory newspapers, my uncle Robert telephoned with a full head of steam.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop doing it; I’ve had Jed on the line. He is more or less foaming at the mouth. The conservationists have invaded the bothy with spades and pickaxes and metal detectors, and are tearing everything apart. He has told them they are trespassing, but it makes no difference, they won’t go away, and Zoë Lang is there, with the light of battle in her eyes as if she were on a crusade.”

“Does Jed mean they are there now?”

“Indeed he does,” he said. “They intend to stay all day and they are digging up all the ground round the bothy. He begs me to fly up there at once.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“Of course I do,” he bellowed. “Meet me at Heathrow, terminal one, as soon as you can.”

I explained to my mother that I would have to go. Resignedly she told me to finish my toast.

I laughed and hugged her, and found a taxi who would go to Heathrow on a Sunday morning.

Himself was striding up and down, an awesome sight. We caught a flight to Edinburgh, where we were met by the helicopter pilot who had risked the bothy’s plateau once before.

Our arrival alarmed a crowd at the bothy, who scattered outwards like ants under an insect-killing spray. When the rotor stopped, the ants came back, led by Jed but with Zoë Lang close on his heels.

“How dare you?” Himself thundered to the fanatical lady.

She straightened, as if she would add inches to her stature. “This bothy,” she insisted, “was given to the nation with the castle.”

“It certainly was not,” my uncle said furiously. “It comes under the heading of my private apartment.”

Behind both of their backs, Jed raised his eyebrows to heaven.

No doubt the courts would decide, I thought, but meanwhile the conservationists were making almost as much mess of my home as the four thugs had done in the first place.

There were holes in the ground everywhere. Beside each hole lay a little heap of empty Coke cans and other metal debris.

In the ruined section of bothy that held trash bins, the comer that held the old bread oven had been excavated to a depth of three feet and the oven left belly up. In the carport end the earth had more or less been plowed, revealing old spanners and ancient pieces of iron machinery.

Staggered by the extent of the ruthless search, I left Himself arguing with Zoë Lang and went into my home to see what damage had been done inside.

To my surprise and relief, very little. Jed had brought back my pipes. The place looked tidy. The picture, wrapped in its sheet, stood on the easel. It seemed the searchers had left the core of the search until last.

I went out to join Zoë Lang to protest the work of her fanatical friends, about ten of whom were still digging holes in every direction, but as I approached her my mobile phone, which I by now carried around out of habit, buzzed weakly in my hand, demanding attention.

Because of the bad reception in the mountains, and the whining noise of metal detectors and yelling all around of the conservationists, I could hear nothing in the receiver but a crackle, with the faintest of voices in the background.

To obliterate at least some of the noise, I carried the mobile phone into the bothy and closed the door.

I said loudly into the receiver, “Whoever you are, shout.”

I heard an earful of crackle, and one word, “Tobias.”

I shouted, unbelieving, “Tobias?”

Crackle.

His faint voice said, “I’ve found it.”

Another load of static.

His voice said again, “Al, I’ve found the money.”

I couldn’t believe it. His voice said, “Are you there?”

I bellowed, “Yes. Where are you?”

Crackle. Crackle. “In Bogotá. In Colombia.”

I still couldn’t believe it. There was a sudden clearing of the static and I could hear his voice plainly. “The money is all here. I found it by accident. The account here had three names on it, not just one or two. A person’s name and two corporate names. I put them all on an application form by mistake, and it was like pressing a button, a door opened, and they are asking for my onwards directions. The money will be back in Reading next week.”

“I can’t believe it. I thought you went away for the weekend.”

He laughed. “I went to Panama. We were getting nowhere electronically. I went to bang a fist ... and the trail led to Bogotá.”

“Tobe ...”

“See you soon,” he said.

The crackle came back. I switched off the telephone, and felt my knees weakening as in the phrase “weak at the knees,” which I had never believed in before.

After a while I took the wrapping sheet off the picture, and even to me the force of it filled the small room.

I had thought I would need time’s perspective to know what I’d done, but the power of the concept seemed to have taken over and made me its instrument. The picture might not comfort, but one wouldn’t forget it.

During the past few weeks I had painted that picture, the brewery’s money had been found, and I’d discovered how far—how deep—I could go into myself.

I had met Tobe and Margaret and Chris.

I’d slept again with Emily and would stay married for as long as she wanted.

I had come to a compact with Patsy.

There wasn’t a great deal I would undo.

Shakily, I went out of the bothy and walked on the weak knees to where Himself and Zoë Lang were gesticulating in each other’s airspace with none too gentlemanly fury.

Himself stopped abruptly, alerted by whatever he saw in my face.

“What is it?” he said.

“The money is found.”

“What money?” Zoë Lang demanded.

Himself didn’t answer her. He stared at me alone with the realization that what had been paid for had been miraculously delivered.

Zoë Lang, thinking that I had found some treasure or other within the bothy, strode off in that direction and disappeared inside.

“Tobias found the money in Bogotá,” I said.

“Using the list?”

“Yes.”

Himself’s rejoicing was like my own; unexpressed except in the eyes, a matter of central warmth rather than triumphal whoops.

“Prince Charles Edward’s hilt,” he said, “is irrelevant.”

We looked around at the determined searchers. None of them was now metal-detecting in the right place, but they might succeed if they went on long enough. The prize had been within their reach: they had dug quite near it.

I thought ruefully that this lot wouldn’t burn me to make me tell them where to look. Zoë Lang wouldn’t strike a match. I wouldn’t have wanted her to be Grantchester.

“Will they find it, Al?” my uncle asked.

“Would you mind it very much?”

“Of course I would. That woman would crow.”

I said, “If she perseveres long enough ... she will.”

“No, Al,” he protested.

“When I hid it,” I said, “it was from burglars, not from a zealot with a mission. When her cohorts give up, that’s when she’ll start thinking. Up until now, I’d guess she believes she’s dealing with simple minds, yours and mine. She suffers from the arrogance of the very brainy: she doesn’t expect anyone to keep up with her on level terms.”

“Your mind is far from simple.”

“She doesn’t know that. And my mind is simpler than hers. She will find the Hilt. We could go away and not watch her gloat.”

“Leave the battlefield!” He was outraged. “Defeat may be unavoidable, but we will meet it with pride.”

Spoken like a true Kinloch, I thought, and remembered briquettes flaming.

Zoë Lang came out of the bothy and walked towards us still carrying a metal detector, which was basically a long black stick with a white control box near the top and a flat white plate at the bottom.

When she reached us she ignored Himself and spoke directly and with penetration to me alone.

“You will tell me the truth,” she said in her old voice. “I am sure you are a very good liar, but this time you will tell me the truth.”

I made no reply. She took it as assent, which it was.

She said, “I saw that picture. Did you paint it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it you who has hidden the Kinloch Hilt?”

“Yes.”

“Is it here ... in your bothy? And would I find it?”

I said, after a pause, “Yes ... and yes.”

My uncle’s mouth opened in protest. Zoë Lang flicked him a glance and thrust the metal detector into his arms.

“You can keep the Hilt,” she said. “I’ll look for it no longer.”

Himself watched in bewilderment while she told one of her helpers to round up the searchers, that they were leaving.

“But Dr. Lang ...” her helper objected.

“The Hilt isn’t here,” she said. “We are going home.”

We watched while they picked up their spades and pickaxes and metal detectors and drifted across to their minivan transport; and when they’d gone Zoë Lang said to Himself, “Don’t you understand?”

“No, I frankly don’t.”

“He hasn’t seen the picture,” I said.

“Oh.” She blinked. “What is it called? Does it have a name?”

“Portrait of Zoë Lang.”

A tear appeared in each of her eyes and ran down her wrinkled old cheeks, as Jed’s wife Flora had foreseen.

“I will not fight you,” she said to me. “You have made me immortal.”

 

 

Himself looked long at the picture when Zoë Lang had driven away in her small white car.

“Immortal,” he said thoughtfully. “Is it?”

“Time will tell.”

“Mad Alexander, who messes about with paints ...”

I smiled. “One has to be slightly mad to do almost anything, such as hiding a treasure.”

“Yes,” he said. “Where is it?”

“Well,” I said, “when you gave me the Hilt to hide all those years ago, the first thing I thought about was metal detectors, because those things find gold almost more easily than any other metal. So I had to think of a hiding place safe from metal detectors, which is actually almost impossible unless you dig down six feet or more ... and underwater is no good, because water is no barrier.”

He interrupted, “How does a metal detector work?”

“Well,” I said, “inside that flat white plate thing, there is a coil of very thin wire. The batteries in that white box, when you switch them on, produce a highfrequency alternating current in the coil, which in turn produces an oscillating magnetic field, which will induce a responding current in any metal near it, which will in turn excite the coil even more, whose increased activity can be interpreted as a whine—and that’s putting it simply.”

“You’ve lost me,” Himself said.

“I had to look it up,” I agreed. “It’s a bit hard to understand.”

He looked around at all the little dug-up heaps of unprecious metal.

“Well, yes.” I grinned. “I buried a lot of things to keep searchers busy.”

“Really, Al.”

“The childish mind,” I said. “I couldn’t help it. I did it five years ago. I might not do it now.”

“So where is the Hilt?”

“It’s where I hid it when you gave it to me.”

“But where?”

“Everyone talks about buried treasure...” I said, “so I didn’t bury it.”

He stared.

I said, “The metal that most confuses a detector is a sheet of aluminum foil. So to start with I wrapped the Hilt in several loose layers of foil, until it was a shapeless bundle about the size of a pillow. Then I took a length of cotton duck—that’s the stuff I paint the pictures on—and I primed it with several coats of gesso to stiffen it and make it waterproof, and then I painted it all over with burnt umber acrylic paint, which is a dark brown color and also waterproof.”