Part 21 (1/2)

I also discovered a rather disconcerting thing about Empedocles, concerning his death. It was said that he killed himself by climbing to the top of Mount Etna and throwing himself into the active crater, so that no one would find his body and people would think that he had been taken up to heaven as a G.o.d. When I read that I felt the hairs p.r.i.c.kle on the back of my neck. The legend went on to say that the volcano coughed up one of his bronze sandals, revealing the deception. Another version had it that the volcano erupted when he jumped in, sending him flying up to the moon, where he still wanders around, living on dew. I thought of the moon guiding us out of the lagoon that night at Lord Howe.

More confused than enlightened by this research, I returned to my room at the hotel. Luce's chalk bag was lying on the desk, and I opened it and saw again the black insect curled up inside. The sight of it took me back to the pinnacle of b.a.l.l.s Pyramid, as the first fierce spots of rain had hit us. I pulled the insect out and disentangled it as best I could, and was surprised by its size-five inches, twelve centimetres, long. Its s.h.i.+ny black sh.e.l.l was tinged with red, and of its six legs, the rear pair were the biggest and most muscular. I had never seen anything like it; it seemed rather primitive and formidable, and I wondered what it was doing in Luce's bag.

So later that morning I took it to the Australian Museum in the centre of the city, threading my way through a long crocodile of ankle-biters in school uniforms queuing up the steps and through the sandstone entrance. A helpful woman at the inquiry desk told me to take the lift to an office on an upper floor, where another woman, equally patient and attentive, scrutinised my grubby little specimen. I felt faintly ridiculous, like one of the schoolboys down below, showing his very interesting find.

'Oh! I know what that is. Goodness. Was your grandfather a sailor or something?'

I looked perplexed.

'I just thought ... This is extinct, you see. Has been for years. Dryococelus australis Dryococelus australis-the phantom phasmid.'

'Sorry?'

'The Lord Howe Island Land Lobster. It's a phasmid, a kind of stick insect. It was only ever found on Lord Howe Island, and it was killed off when rats got ash.o.r.e from a grounded s.h.i.+p in 1918. We have quite a few specimens in our entomology collection. There's one on display in Insects, down on level two. So, how did you come by it?'

'Oh ... long story. A friend found it. Bit like what you said, probably, left by some old relative.' Old Uncle Marcus perhaps. 'So it's been extinct for a while?'

'Oh yes. There's a small island near Lord Howe where they found the last remains, but no live specimens unfortunately.'

'That wouldn't have been b.a.l.l.s Pyramid, would it?'

She beamed at me, clever boy. 'That's right! Some people landed there in the sixties, and found a few dead phasmids.'

I found their specimen on level two, in a gla.s.s case labelled RARE AND CURIOUS RARE AND CURIOUS. Apparently it was extinct on Lord Howe by 1935. In 1966 three dead ones were found by the first climbers on b.a.l.l.s Pyramid. How they'd got there was a mystery, for the phasmid was wingless.

I walked out of the museum, crossed the street to Hyde Park and sat on a bench in the sun. Young office workers were lying on the gra.s.s, eating sandwiches and sunning themselves. I was thinking of the sentence in Luce's draft final letter to me.

I feel like the last phasmid like the last phasmid. so sad.

So she'd been thinking about the phasmid before she went out to b.a.l.l.s Pyramid on that final fatal day. Perhaps she had written the draft the day before, after they'd made their first landing there, maybe on the evening of the party. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed to me that the group would have been much more interested in investigating the phasmid on b.a.l.l.s Pyramid than yet more gulls' eggs. The rats had never reached the Pyramid, so no one could have been sure that these strange creatures hadn't survived out there. What could be more intriguing to a bunch of young zoologists than the possibility of rediscovering something thought extinct for seventy years? And yet Damien hadn't mentioned it.

If Luce found the dead phasmid on her final climb, did she keep it in her chalk bag with the note as another kind of veiled message? If so, it, like the poem, could surely only have been directed at Marcus. It upset me to think that her two final messages might have been intended for him. But what did they mean?

I was struggling with this when my phone played a little tune in my pocket. It was Anna, wondering if I'd spoken to Damien yet. I apologised for not getting back to her sooner, and told her about my talk with him.

'Mm ...' I could imagine her eyebrows furrowed in concentration as she thought about it. 'It does sound right, doesn't it?'

'Maybe.'

'You're not sure? It's pretty close to what you thought, isn't it?'

'I suppose that's what bothers me. He already knew all about our trip-Bob had called him.'

'Oh. But still ...'

Then I told her about the poem and the land lobster, and the way they seemed to refer back to Marcus.

'Damien was particularly keen that we shouldn't talk to Marcus again. Too upsetting for the poor bloke.'

'You want to go anyway?'

'Yes. He also wanted me to get you to back off. You're too hysterical, apparently.'

'Hysterical? Me?'

'Yes. He said you attacked him at the inquest.'

'Oh, that. It was a bad time for me, Josh. I told you.'

'Yes. So, you want to go out to Castlecrag tonight? We could grab a bite to eat first.'

I picked her up from her flat that evening at six, and we had a pizza on our way through town. There was a sudden shower and the traffic slowed and became more congested, headlights and wipers on. By the time we reached Castlecrag the light was fading beneath the heavy clouds. I turned off into the winding laneways of the Griffins' estate, and came to a stop outside the house in The Citadel.

It seemed to be in total darkness and I thought we were wasting our time, but then Anna noticed a glimmer of light from a small side window. I parked on the verge further down the street where it was slightly wider, and we hurried back through the rain towards the rugged stone bunker, brooding beneath its dripping canopy of foliage. I almost slipped in the pitch-dark defile of the entry pathway, treacherous with wet moss, then rapped the knocker on the heavy front door, which swung open of its own accord. A sigh seemed to come out of the house, like a gasp of its own breath, heavy with the odours of damp and mould and sour age, which made the hairs p.r.i.c.kle on the back of my neck.

'Marcus?' I called out. 'Dr Fenn?'

There was no reply, and we stepped tentatively over the threshold and I ran my fingers across the cold wall feeling for a switch. I found it finally and switched the light on, a rather dim, low-watt bulb in a heavy shade. Directly beneath it we saw papers scattered across the floor, as if there had been a robbery. We stepped cautiously across them to the sitting room, with its obstacle course of heavy furniture. There didn't seem to be any obvious signs of disturbance here, but the building's breath was more pungent, a c.o.c.ktail of strange odours-burnt sulphur, ammonia, bad eggs, the vapour of concentrated acid. They were the remembered smells of the school chemistry lab.

There was a glimmer of light ahead, through the doorway to the study. Inside I could see Marcus's throne, illuminated by the small table lamp.

'Marcus?'

We moved forward cautiously and more of the room came into view. It looked even more chaotic than before, with papers, books, mugs and plates scattered everywhere. As we stepped in a figure suddenly appeared at a door in the side wall, from an adjoining room I hadn't seen before. I jumped back, startled by the mask over mouth and nose, the goggles, the white coat and gloves.

'h.e.l.lo?' A man's voice, m.u.f.fled by the mask. Then he pulled off the gloves and tossed them aside, peeled off the mask and goggles, and we recognised Marcus, wearing a lab coat blotched with chemical stains and burns.

'Oh, Marcus. Sorry, we knocked and called out, but the front door was open. We thought there'd been a burglary or something.'

He looked at us in turn, frowning as if still preoccupied with whatever he'd been doing. 'Um? No. I was just working.' His voice sounded rough and croaky. 'Didn't hear you. What's up?'

'We wondered if we could have a word. We could come back if you're in the middle of something.'

'No, it's all right. Clear a pew, will you? Want a drink? There's some Scotch over there. Make mine a big one. Water?'

'Yes, thanks.'

He turned back into the side room, obviously the source of the smells, which were very strong here. I found three grubby tumblers, and while I poured we heard the sound of Marcus coughing, clearing his throat and spitting, then the rush of water from a tap. He reappeared with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g beaker in his free hand, manoeuvring awkwardly with his stick around the obstacles, and I wondered what kind of safety risk he must be, handling chemicals. I took the beaker and slopped a little water into Anna's and my drinks. Marcus pivoted himself down into his throne and shook his head at the water, gulping at the Scotch neat. The glow from the lamp at his elbow picked out his Adam's apple, working like a piston in his corded throat as he swallowed greedily. His eyes seemed enlarged in his skull, the lowered lids more hooded.

'What can I do for you?'

'It's the same thing as we came about last time,' I said. 'We've been to Lord Howe Island.'

His eyes snapped open. 'Have you now?'

'Yes. We know, Marcus.'

'Know? Know what?'

'About the eggs ...'