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    Gold
    Gold
    Gold
    Ebook80 pages1 hour

    Gold

    By John Wilson

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    About this ebook

    Sam and Annabel are on vacation with Annabel's parents in Italy. While visiting the small hilltop town of Civita, they hear rumors of looted gold from World War II buried somewhere in the town's network of underground tunnels and caves. Once again the two friends cross paths with their old nemesis, Humphrey Battleford, but he is not the only one in pursuit of the gold. An intimidating man named Kurt, the grandson of a ruthless Nazi, is also snooping around. After Annabel is kidnapped, Sam must solve the mystery of the hidden treasure to save his friend.

    This is the fourth mystery featuring Sam and Annabel, after Stolen, Bones and Lost.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateOct 24, 2017
    ISBN9781459814837
    Gold
    Author

    John Wilson

    Qualified in agricultural science, medicine, surgery and psychiatry, Dr John Wilson practised for thirty-seven years, specialising as a consultant psychiatrist. In Sydney, London, California and Melbourne, he used body-oriented therapies including breath-awareness, and re-birthing. He promoted the ‘Recovery Model of Mental Health’ and healing in general. At Sydney University, he taught in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, within the School of Public Health. He has worked as Technical Manager of a venture-capital project, producing health foods in conjunction with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Dissenting from colonial values, he saw our ecological crisis as more urgent than attending urban distress. Almost thirty years ago, instead of returning to the academy, he went bush, learning personal downsizing and voluntary simplicity from Aboriginal people. Following his deepening love of the wild through diverse ecologies, he turned eco-activist, opposing cyanide gold mining in New South Wales and nuclear testing in the Pacific. Spending decades in the Australian outback, reading and writing for popular appreciation, he now fingers Plato, drawing on history, the classics, art, literature, philosophy and science for this book about the psychology of ecology – eco-psychology – about the very soul of our ecocidal folly.

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      Book preview

      Gold - John Wilson

      Fourteen

      Chapter One

      "Foe

      I have.

      A crook collector

      Of relics, books and bones.

      Visiting Humphrey’s mansion—

      Discovers Sam in ice.

      Recovers from clutch of

      Battle Ford."

      What? I ask.

      Annabel and I are sitting at an outdoor café in the main square in Orvieto, Italy. I’ve been staring in awe at the ornate entrance to the city’s cathedral while Annabel scribbles on the back of a napkin. It’s a piem, she says, as if that’s supposed to mean something to me.

      Don’t you mean a poem?

      A piem is a poem written in Pilish.

      Annabel has told me about Pilish, so this gives me a clue. You mean the language where the number of letters in each word matches the numbers of Pi?

      Exactly. Annabel puts on a wicked smile and goes on. The language that Greg and I shared when we visited your mom in Canada.

      Annabel hasn’t stopped teasing me ever since we visited the dinosaur dig in Alberta. I’d gotten upset that this guy, who knew almost as much about the number Pi as she did, was hitting on her. You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?

      I think it’s cute that you were jealous, she says. Her smile broadens. And a little bit dumb that you thought I would dump you for someone like Greg.

      Okay, I say. Enough about him. Let’s see your piem.

      Annabel turns her napkin around so I can read what she’s written. I don’t know Pi to thousands of numbers like she does, but I’ve learned enough to know that the number of letters in the words of her piem are the same as the beginning of Pi—3.14159265358979323846264… Very clever, I agree, but it just goes to show how weird you are.

      But you’ve always known about my small obsession with Pi.

      Two things, I say. "One, it’s not a small obsession, and two, we’re sitting in the sun in Italy, across the square from a seven-hundred-year-old building that’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and you are doodling. And what’s this bit about me in ice?"

      Nothing personal. I needed a threeletter word. Don’t you think it’d be neat to visit one of Humphrey Battleford’s mansions and see some of the unique things he’s collected?

      Stolen, you mean, but yes, it would be cool. However, I doubt that he’ll invite us any time soon.

      Oh, I don’t know. He seems to like us. He even said he enjoys matching wits with us. He did set up that Arctic cruise so we would be a part of his scheme.

      And we have outfoxed him so far, I say, but that doesn’t mean he won’t win if there’s ever a next time. He has unlimited money.

      But we have brains, Annabel points out with a smile. Okay, I have most of them, but you do help a little bit.

      Thanks very much, I say. Then I point at the piem. "At least I’m smart enough to notice that you made a mistake. Battleford is one word."

      Poetic license. I broke it up into six and four so it would work. She looks up. Here’s Mom and Dad.

      I can see Annabel’s parents winding their way between tour groups and pairs of scruffy backpackers. Even in the crowd, they stand out. For a start, Annabel’s dad, Jack, is even taller than she is, and towers above everyone. He’s wearing his usual uniform—hiking boots, khaki cargo pants and shirt covered in bulging pockets, and a wide-brimmed, beat-up bush hat. His long face is never clean-shaven, unruly tufts of red hair stick out from beneath his hat, and his piercing blue eyes are continually on the move, taking in every detail of the world and people around him.

      In contrast, his wife, Pam, is at least a foot shorter and is always neatly dressed. Her honey-blond hair is stylishly cut, and she’s wearing a bright, flowery summer dress and carrying a new Italian-leather shoulder bag. She sees us, smiles, waves and heads over. Jack, gazing at the low sun painting the front of the cathedral a dramatic gold, stumbles into a busload of Japanese tourists.

      Hello, you two, Pam says as she glides between the tables, kisses us both on the cheek and sits down. She loops her bag over the back of the chair and looks out onto the square. Jack is untangling himself from the tourists, who keep trying to take selfies with him. I don’t know how he ever gets anywhere. Pam shakes her head and catches the attention of a waiter. As Jack finally stumbles to our table and slumps into a chair, Pam orders two coffees and two more colas for Annabel and me.

      Do anything exciting today? Jack asks.

      Annabel immediately starts telling him about the buildings and art we’ve seen. Jack, who teaches history, chips in with facts and questions. When they begin to discuss which sculptures on the front of the cathedral were done by the fourteenth-century architect Lorenzo Maitani, Pam and I look at each other and raise our eyebrows. This has happened before.

      So, Sam, Pam says, I think Maitani’s very overrated. Don’t you agree?

      "No. I think he’s easily the best central defender the Italian soccer

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