a verse from a poem. And in the bottom, left-hand corner, a blazing sun and two words in capital letters:
Was that Spanish? Somehow it didn’t sound like it. What did the page mean and why had Salamanda felt the need to photocopy it? Matt folded the paper away. He would solve the mystery later, once he had found Richard.
They drove on.
The countryside was changing. It was much more mountainous, covered in dense green vegetation. The road, which had been straight before, now continued in a series of hairpin bends as the bus climbed ever higher. Matt remembered what Pedro had said and sniffed the air cautiously. It was definitely getting thinner. Even the colour of the sky was different; a harder, more electric blue. There were farmhouses, thrown onto the upper slopes as if by chance, and strange fortresses, small and circular, built of solid stone. It would be impossible to grow anything here, or so Matt thought. But then they turned another corner and he saw that someone -the local Indians or some civilization before them – had carved fantastic terraces into the sides of the hills, shoring them up with boulders and then planting them with crops. It must have been the labour of hundreds of years.
They passed through villages and then towns. Everything was strange here, quite different from the other side of Peru… more ancient and spectacular. The mountains were huge, enclosing everything. And then the bus reached the top of a valley and Matt saw the city of Cuzco spread out in front of him. It was like nothing he had ever seen in his life.
It really wasn’t like a city at all. That was his first thought. There were no skyscrapers, no office blocks, no main roads, no traffic lights nor even very much traffic. Cuzco was like something out of a storybook, and one written a long time ago. Looking out of the bus window, Matt saw a central square dominated by two Spanish cathedrals and all around, neat, white-fronted houses with terracotta roofs that continued in a sprawl for what looked like several miles, to the foothills on the other side.
But it was only when they had left the bus and begun to make their way on foot towards the centre that Matt was able to get the measure of the place. Cuzco was a beautiful city of archways and verandas, wrought-iron lamps, cobbled streets and pavements so highly polished that they could have been inside a museum or a palace. Every building seemed to be either a restaurant, an Internet cafe or a shop piled high with textiles, jewellery and souvenirs. There was poverty here too. Matt saw a tiny boy, barefoot and dirty, asleep in a doorway. Old women sat in the street, blinking in the sunlight. Shoeshine boys looked for trade around the churches. But the poverty seemed almost picturesque here – just something else for the tourists to photograph.
And there were tourists and backpackers everywhere. As they entered the main square, Matt heard English voices and his immediate instinct was to throw himself into the arms of the first person he met. He needed help. A rich English tourist was the perfect answer. At the very least, they would help him reach a British embassy and they, in turn, would arrange his flight home.
But even as he started forward, he knew he couldn’t do it. First of all there was Richard. He couldn’t just abandon his friend, and if Matt left the country, he might well be condemning the journalist to death. After all, he was the one they wanted. Not Richard.
And then there was Pedro. Whatever had happened to Matt, and however much he hated being here, he had managed to find one of the Five. They were meant to stay together. Running away wouldn’t help anyone, and Matt knew he had to see this through.
He stood back and watched as a group walked past, following a woman waving an umbrella. He fell in with them. At least it gave him a little comfort to hear his own language.
“Cuzco has always been known as the holy city,” she was saying. “It was certainly holy to the Incas, who made this the centre of their empire. They were ruling here in 1533 when the Spanish conquistadors, led by Francisco Pizarro, invaded. The Spanish destroyed much of the city and built their own palaces and cathedrals on what was left, but even today you will see a great deal of Inca influence. In particular, you should look at the amazing walls, fitted together without the use of cement. We’ll have plenty of chance to examine Inca building methods this afternoon, when we visit the temple of Coricancha…”
Coricancha. That was where Matt had been told to go. He was tempted to stick with this woman – but there was no point. He had imagined something small and hard to find but it seemed that the temple was a major tourist attraction. And anyway, he was meant to be there on Friday evening at sunset. What day was it now? Matt had no real idea. He had just spent an entire night on a bus. That would make it Wednesday or Thursday. He hardly knew where he was and he had no idea when he’d arrived. In a way, he was just like Pedro: desplazado. Utterly displaced.
The woman with the umbrella moved off. The tourists obediently followed. Matt turned to Pedro, who was standing in the square looking lost. Of course, he had barely been out of Lima in his life and in many ways the city of Cuzco must have been as strange to him as it was to Matt.
“We need to find somewhere to stay,” he said.
Pedro looked blank.
“A hotel…” Matt added. He knew they couldn’t afford one, but it was the only word that Pedro would understand.
Pedro shook his head. He looked doubtful.
Matt rubbed a finger and thumb together. The well-known gesture for money. “Somewhere cheap,” he said.
They walked together out of the square and along a straight, narrow street with a wall about five metres high on one side. It must have been built by the people that the tour guide had been talking about – the Incas. It could have been made as long ago as a thousand years, when they were in command of the city. The stones were huge. Each one must have weighed a ton. But at the same time they were all irregular in shape, with seven or eight edges. Somehow they had all been locked together without mortar. There were tourists taking photographs of each other against the wall. Street sellers were hawking pictures of it on cards.
The first hotel they came to refused to take them. It was a small, rough-looking place filled with students and backpackers smoking and sipping beer in the open courtyard. Matt crouched in the street beside the door, once again disguising his height, while Pedro spoke to the receptionist – an elderly woman with suspicious eyes. He had money, but she wasn’t having any of it. What he didn’t have was a passport. The money was certainly stolen. Why would two Peruvian beggar boys want to stay in a tourist hotel unless it was to rob the other guests?
The second hotel was the same. At the third, Matt went in and tried to book a room, speaking in English. The owner stared at him in something close to shock and he could understand why. The language he was speaking simply didn’t fit in with his appearance and he backed away quickly. He had no need to remind himself that the police were looking for him. The fact that Captain Rodriguez had been at the hacienda proved that he was in the pay of Diego Salamanda – if any more proof were needed. Matt had no papers, no identity. If the police got their hands on him a second time, he would disappear for good.
By now it was late morning. Matt was thirsty, hungry and exhausted. He could feel the lack of oxygen in the air. Every time he exerted himself, he had to stop for a moment to catch his breath. How high up were they? On the bus, it had felt as if they were climbing for hours.
He looked at Pedro and gestured. “Do you want to eat?”
Pedro nodded. “Estoy muerto de hambre.”
They chose the shabbiest, quietest restaurant they could find, but even so the owner refused to serve them until they had paid. But once he had their money and knew they wouldn’t run away, he took pity on them and served a huge meal of chicharrones – chunks of deep-fried pork ribs – and a jug of chicha, which tasted sweet and fruity and was some sort of ancient Inca beer.
Matt and Pedro ate in silence. They had no choice. But even so Matt was beginning to feel closer to the other boy – as if the two of them had known each other all their lives and really had no need to talk. A few other travellers came in, but they paid no attention to them and Matt was able to relax and collect his thoughts.
One of the travellers at the next table was reading a Spanish newspaper. He turned a page and at that moment, everything changed. Pedro nudged him and pointed. Matt turned and saw a photograph of himself – taken by Richard in the middle of York. Matt saw the pale skin, the neat hair, the smiling face and jolted upright in his chair. The picture belonged to another time, another world. He could hardly believe it was himself.
And then came the fear. Had the Peruvian police published the photograph to try and track him down? How had they got it? He didn’t want to draw attention to himself, but he had to know what the newspaper said. And how was he meant to do that? It was the same old problem. The article was in Spanish and Pedro couldn’t read. But
