The Midnight Palace - Carlos Ruiz Zafon [51]
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Sheere.
‘Sometimes the truth is the hardest thing to believe. Remember what Aryami told us,’ Ben said. ‘But let’s not rush into anything. Is de Rozio still investigating this?’
‘He is, yes,’ replied Seth. ‘The number of documents is so vast that he’d need an army of library rats to make sense of anything.’
‘You’ve made quite a good job of it,’ remarked Ian.
‘We weren’t expecting anything less,’ said Ben. ‘Why don’t you go back to the librarian, and don’t lose sight of him for a moment. I’m sure we’re missing something …’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Michael, although he already knew the answer.
‘We’ll go to the engineer’s house,’ Ben replied. ‘Perhaps what we’re looking for is there.’
‘Or something else …’ Michael pointed out.
Ben smiled.
‘As I said, we’ll take that risk.’
SHEERE, IAN AND BEN arrived outside the gates that guarded Chandra Chatterghee’s house shortly before midnight. To the east, the narrow tower of the Shyambazar was silhouetted against the moon’s sphere, projecting its shadow over the garden of palm trees and bushes that hid the building.
Ben leaned on the gate of metal spears and examined their threatening sharp points.
‘We’ll have to climb over,’ he remarked. ‘It doesn’t look easy.’
‘We won’t have to,’ said Sheere next to him. ‘Our father described every inch of this house in his book before he built it, and I’ve spent years memorising every detail. If what he wrote is correct, and I have no doubt that it is, there’s a small lake behind these shrubs and the house stands further back.’
‘What about these spears?’ asked Ben. ‘Did he write about them too? I’d rather not end up skewered like a roast chicken.’
‘There’s another way of getting into the house without having to jump over them,’ said Sheere.
‘Then what are we waiting for?’ Ben and Ian asked together.
Sheere led them through what was barely an alleyway, a small gap between the railings surrounding the property and the walls of an adjacent building with Moorish features. Soon they reached a circular opening that looked as if it served as the main sewer for all the drains in the house. From it came a sour biting stench.
‘In here?’ asked Ben sceptically.
‘What did you expect?’ snapped Sheere. ‘A Persian carpet?’
Ben scanned the inside of the sewage tunnel and sniffed.
‘Divine,’ he concluded, turning to Sheere. ‘You first.’
THEY EMERGED FROM THE TUNNEL BENEATH A small wooden bridge that arched over the lake, a dark velvety mantle of murky water stretching in front of Chandra Chatterghee’s house. Sheere led the two boys along a narrow bank, their feet sinking into the clay, until they reached the other end of the lake. There she stopped to gaze at the building she had dreamed about all her life. Ian and Ben stood quietly by her side.
The two-storey building was flanked by two towers, one on either side. It featured a mix of architectural styles, from Edwardian lines to Palladian extravaganzas and features that looked as if they belonged to some castle tucked away in the mountains of Bavaria. The overall effect, however, was elegant and serene, challenging the critical eye of the spectator. The house seemed to possess a bewitching charm, so that although the first impression was one of bewilderment you then had the feeling that the impossible jumble of styles and forms had been chosen on purpose to create a harmonious whole.
‘Is this how your father described it?’ asked Ian.
Sheere nodded in amazement and walked towards the steps leading to the front door. Ben and Ian watched her hesitantly, wondering how she thought she was going to enter such a fortress. But Sheere seemed to move about the mysterious surroundings as if they had been her childhood home. The ease with which she dodged obstacles, almost invisible in the dark, made the two boys feel like trespassers in the dream Sheere had nurtured during her nomadic years. As they watched her walk up the steps, Ben and Ian realised that this deserted place