Viper's Nest (19 page)

Cate closed the door of her room and locked it carefully. Then she sat down on the narrow bed which lay underneath the window and took a deep breath.

Maybe Maria had been so distracted by her boyfriend that she had missed a vehicle going past. Or perhaps they had fallen asleep for a few minutes. But she had certainly been convincing.

Cate drummed her fingers on the white sheets. Was it possible that the attackers had come out from the forest and, after the attack, escaped that way? Perhaps their vehicles had been parked
miles away and they had marched their prisoners there. Or perhaps, she thought with a shudder, they had disposed of their prisoners en route.

She pulled out her tablet, switching it on and plugging it in, and waited while it searched for the hostel’s wifi signal. The security measures Arthur had fitted to her tablet would make
sure all her communications stayed secure. Cate firmly believed that there wasn’t a hacker on this earth who could break Arthur’s security codes.

There was a soft bleep as the signal reached full strength, then a harder buzzing signifying that someone was trying to reach her on Skype.

‘Hey, Cate – how are things in deepest Mexico?’ Arthur was excited about something. His hair stood up on his head, forced upright from running his fingers through it, which he
always did when his brain was working overtime.

‘Amazing,’ Cate said, ‘in more ways than one. The site is just incredible. But it’s kinda spooky too.’

‘Cool,’ said Arthur. He wasn’t really listening, Cate could tell.

‘Come on, Arthur,’ she said encouragingly. ‘Out with it. What’s the hot news?’

Her brother pulled a goofy face. ‘Erm, just wondered if you’d heard from your Michel by any chance?’

Cate’s heart turned a neat somersault in her chest at the mention of her ex-boyfriend’s name.

‘Michel? No, nothing. And he’s not
my
Michel anyway. He’s not my anything. In case you’d forgotten, he dumped me.’ Curiosity got the better of her, though.
‘Why do you ask?’

Arthur raised his eyebrows enigmatically. ‘Well, I’m not quite sure how to break this to you but, well . . . he’s just turned up. At the house. He’s downstairs talking to
Monique and Dad right now.’

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Then a huge grin broke out on Arthur’s face, one which Cate knew was mirrored on her own.

‘Excuse me, Arthur, for one minute,’ she said, picking up a pillow from the bed. ‘I just need to . . .’

‘Have a good scream,’ her brother finished for her. ‘Go on, sis, get it out of your system.’

‘That’s better,’ said Cate, thirty seconds later, as she repositioned herself in front of the screen and pulled her ponytail back into place. ‘Now I want you to tell me
everything. What exactly did Michel say? How does he look? Is he still gorgeous?
Why has he come to London?
’

Cate suddenly realised that she was no longer looking at the pixellated features of her kid brother. Instead, she found herself staring into the handsome, smiling face of her ex-boyfriend.

‘I came to London because I needed to see you,’ said Michel, his big, brown eyes sparkling with amusement. ‘I have missed you so much. I was stupid and stubborn and I refused
to see things from your point of view . . .’

‘Oh Michel,’ said Cate. Her heart was suddenly soaring. ‘I don’t blame you. I would have done the same.’

Michel looked serious. ‘No, you would have listened to me, given me a chance to really explain my side of the story. I didn’t and I’m stupid and I’m sorry. Can you
forgive me?’

Cate grinned happily. ‘Of course I forgive you. I’ve missed you so much. How are you? How’s work, your family? Oh, I so wish I was back in London. Or better still, in
Antibes.’

‘Me too,’ said Michel. ‘That is typical of us. I finally pluck up the courage to come to London and you’ve gone to LA. But this time, Cate, I’m not letting you get
away. As soon as you get back to London – the very minute you do – I’ll be here waiting for you. If I don’t see you soon I think I will go – what’s the word you
use? – bonkers.’

‘Michel, I’m counting the days. I’ve been going bonkers too.’

They chatted some more, but eventually they had to put an end to the conversation. Cate lay back on the pillow, a huge grin on her face. Michel had forgiven her, they were back together, he
would be waiting for her in London. Just wait till she told Louisa.

Her mobile ringing jarred her back to reality. Cate looked down at the screen and pulled a face. It was her mother and even the ring tone seemed angry.

Reluctantly she hit the receive button. At the sound of her mother’s furious voice shrieking down the line, Cate settled back on to the bed. She had no defence, she knew that. All she
could do was shut her eyes and wait for the storm to blow itself out. But did she care? Michel was back in her life. Nothing else mattered any more!

The hut where the archaeology students had stayed was situated well away from the tourist area on a patch of land hacked from the jungle and next to a fast-running river.

Cate approached the site carefully, checking continuously that no one was following her, keeping a wary eye out for the security guards she had seen wandering around the ruins earlier in the
day.

Signs of the excavation work were everywhere – gaping ditches with pieces of stone protruding out of them like teeth in an open mouth, a tall stone pillar topped with the half-missing face
of a warrior, and the first few steps of a pyramid, crumbling, almost unrecognisable from the fully restored beauties Cate had seen earlier on the official site.

Everywhere, the jungle was encroaching. Strangely shaped roots burst through the dry ground, thick carpets of grass and weeds reached across even the new excavations. Just then, a pair of macaws
strutted out of the jungle, the bright reds and yellows of their plumage providing a vivid contrast to the dull green. Their sharp, dark eyes seemed to look at Cate fearlessly.

‘Hello,’ said Cate, so entranced by the sight that for a moment she forgot what she was there for. ‘You’re beautiful.’ One of them shrieked at Cate loudly, then
plucked crossly at the ground in front of her, pulling out tiny insects with easy skill.

Cate smiled and looked across at the hut. It was raised up on low timber stilts, the space between the floor and the ground outside a good half-metre. Thick grass and sinuous roots formed an
almost impenetrable barrier between the two. At the back, the jungle had been allowed to grow up against the timber walls and Cate could see spiny plants and hairy vines creeping around the sides
of the building.

It was clearly deserted. The only sign that the police had been there was a ripped
Do not enter – crime scene
banner strewn carelessly across the front. Cate shook her head, shocked
at how insecure the hut was. She glanced over her shoulder, then pushed cautiously at the wooden door. It opened easily, revealing a low-ceilinged interior which already smelled damp and dank, as
if it had lain unused for months instead of just a few days.

As Cate’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw two sets of bunk beds divided by a thin plywood partition. The bedding had gone, presumably taken by the police for forensic evidence, leaving
only a thin sheet covering each mattress. Mosquito nets hung from hooks on the ceiling like ghostly waterfalls.

It was easy to see which had been the twins’ bunks. The wall between the top and bottom bed was plastered with photographs, leaving hardly any space between them. Cate felt a sadness well
up in her as she saw pictures of the twins hiking, dancing with friends, hugging someone who was presumably their mother, hanging out on the beach. There was even a group photograph of the gang
from Snapper Bay, and Cate saw, with a lump in her throat, that she was in it, her arm flung carelessly around a beaming, handsome Michel.

She turned to the books stashed on a small bedside table by the bunks. The twins were obviously taking their assignment seriously – most of the books were archaeological reference books,
travel books covering Mexico, and a few biographies of world-famous explorers, dozens of the pages marked with yellow sticky notes. Cate smiled then, remembering Jade’s jokey profile on her
Twitter page:
Aiming to be the most famous explorer since Colombus.

She walked around the partition and peered through the gloom at the other beds. On the bottom bunk, action shots of football jostled with photographs of female popstars and actresses and posters
for heavy metal gigs. Funny how you could tell so much so quickly about people, just by looking at a few of their possessions, mused Cate.

Her phone twitched into life. Phone reception here? She was surprised, and imagined it was sporadic at best.

Hey Cate. Need 2 talk. Where are u? Call me? Ritchie.

Dammit. Michel’s call had completely blown Ritchie out of her mind. She made a mental note to text him again later.

Cate looked around curiously. On one side there was a large wooden desk and a bookshelf filled mainly with maps and charts. Above the desk hung a map of the area surrounding the hut, marking the
latest excavation sites. She perched on the edge of the desk and gazed out of the small window. The group had found something here, something important enough to warrant the leader of the dig
calling in one of the most important professors in Mexico. And Cate was sure that, if she worked out what that was, she would be much closer to finding out just what had happened to the twins.

She began to search along the shelves, sifting methodically through the books and folded maps, looking for signs of any recent use. Some of the charts dated back as far as the nineteen-twenties,
the time when the restoration of the site had begun, and most of them were covered in dust and clearly hadn’t been unfolded for some time. The books were a disappointment, nothing more than a
random collection of cheap paperbacks and ancient hardbacks, probably what passed for entertainment when the day’s work was done.

She moved on to the desk drawers. The discovery of a logbook gave Cate a quick moment of hope, but even that proved to be a disappointment. Apart from mundane entries about food supplies, dig
timetables and rotas, only the date that the professor was due to arrive at the site was marked out, with a bright red exclamation mark.

She stood back and looked at the desk, noting its carved legs, her eyes lingering thoughtfully over the battered drawers and shelves. It reminded her of a desk she played with as a child, in a
rented house in Gibraltar where her father had been stationed for a few months. She and Arthur had spent many happy hours working out where the secret drawers were, using them as a hideaway for
their favourite objects.

Suddenly Cate dropped to her knees and poked her head under the desk, using her fingers to search into the furthest corners. If she remembered rightly . . . She felt a small indentation the size
of a ten-pence piece and pressed up hard. She heard a dull whirring noise behind and pulled her head back out just as a thin, vertical section of wood slid out from the right-hand leg. Trembling
with excitement, Cate watched as a folded piece of paper fluttered to the floor.

She picked it up and opened it out carefully. It was yellowy, the colour of a faded coffee stain, and felt dry and flaky to her touch. The handwritten inscription was in Spanish and, from what
Cate could decipher from the spindly copperplate, the map had been made in 1858 – not long after the site was first rediscovered.

‘Wow,’ she breathed, sitting back on her heels. ‘How long has that been there?’ She slotted it gently into her rucksack – it might not provide an answer to the
mystery, but it was certainly worth closer examination.

Cate decided it was time to explore the site, but not in the daylight, not with tourists and backpackers wandering around. That was a job best done under cover of darkness.

Back in her room, Cate locked the door carefully behind her and began to unfold the old map on the floor. It was delicate work. The thin paper felt as if it would tear with the
slightest movement, but finally she managed to get it fully open. It was only half a metre square, not large compared to today’s standards, but it was neatly and professionally drawn.

Cate gently brushed a light layer of dust from the map and gazed at it, entranced. It was such a beautiful, evocative thing, the faded, hand-drawn ink strokes reminding her of stories of the
golden age of exploration, when most of the world was yet to be discovered and determined men and women spent years in remote wildernesses seeking out flora and fauna and the marvels of nature.

Her first impression had been correct. It was, as far as she could see, a reproduction of the entire site of El Tajin, made well before the reconstruction had taken place.

Cate pored over it, frowning with concentration. She could see the distinctive rectangle of pyramids that had greeted her at the entrance to the site and, beyond that the vast, unmistakable
shape of the Pyramid of the Niches. There were the ball courts and the remains of the other pyramids that stood close by.

To the north-east of this main group of buildings, the river gave Cate a clue as to where the hostel now stood, and from that she worked out the position of the dig. She tugged her ring off and
placed it right on the spot.

It made sense that, if the team had found anything, it would have been close to where they had been digging and, using the ring as a focus, she began to scour that small area of the map, working
methodically outwards, centimetre by centimetre. Sure enough, according to the map, the hut was in the middle of a whole host of ancient ruins, some of them stretching out into the rainforest. In
fact, there had even been a building underneath the hostel where Cate was right now!

She grinned, half fascinated, half freaked by the thought that somewhere underneath her, in the thick tangle of roots and soil of the jungle, lay the remains of the vast town. Perhaps Cate was
sitting above a house, or a temple, maybe even a site of sacrifice or a mass burial ground. It was pretty damn spooky.