The Other Tree by D. K. Mok Read Free Book Online

being there , having her feet firmly on the ground, hiking through the jungle, or up the slope of a volcanic island. She loved picking slowly through the grasses, collecting plants that were the botanical equivalent of albino ligers and amiable giant rats.
    She didn’t like the part where you were stuck in a pressurised tube, being ignored by the cabin crew.
    “Hello! Hey!” called Chris as the air steward wheeled past with a silver trolley.
    He didn’t even slow down.
    “That’s the third time he’s gone past with the snack trolley and deliberately ignored me,” grumbled Chris.
    “How sure are you about this?” asked Luke, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Because I only have a week of holiday leave, and then they’re going to give my office to the psychic counsellor.”
    “You mean psych counsellor.”
    “No,” said Luke firmly. “The university’s been hiring all kinds of crackpots.”
    Silence.
    “I didn’t mean you,” said Luke. He leaned over. “Maybe you’re not doing the wave right.”
    Luke pointed to a pretty young Asian woman wearing oversized sunglasses several aisles away.
    “Thank you,” said the Asian woman, raising her hand in a neat salute towards the man with the trolley.
    The air steward rushed to her side, lavishing her with cream biscuits. Chris’s scowl deepened.
    “So how sure are you about this?” continued Luke.
    “There’s a St Basilissa’s Museum in Naples, and they confirmed that they have a Sumerian clay tablet.”
    “Is it the Sumerian tablet?”
    “Sorry, but my Italian’s kind of limited,” said Chris defensively.
    She decided now was not a good time to share the fact that her Italian was actually limited to “Baci” and the names of other chocolates.
    “I told the head of Religious Guidance I was on a research sabbatical,” said Luke.
    “Would you rather be back at uni?” asked Chris, thinking back to the grey plasterboard walls of his office.
    Luke turned to face the lightening window, settling his head against the travel pillow.
    “Wake me when we get there,” said Luke.
    * * *
    Hoyle tapped quickly across the sliding layers of text on his electronic pad, then raised his eyes to address Marrick.
    “Genie Four have hit a dead end, sir,” said Hoyle. “The promising retail premises they visited yesterday appear to have…moved elsewhere.”
    “Any commercial lease documentation to track?” asked Marrick.
    “The whole building is gone, sir.”
    “Keep me informed,” said Marrick. “That will be all.”
    * * *
    St Basilissa’s Museum had aspired to be a classic Renaissance edifice, with towering Corinthian columns, flushed with gradients of brilliant apricot at the base, fading to pearlescent white near the domed roof. Tall, open archways connected each room to the next, beneath panelled ceilings patterned with mouldings of leaves and florets.
    They seemed slightly incongruous with the newly installed skylights and the laser alarms surrounding various displays, which Chris suspected were less for breach detection than for sizzling holes in intruders.
    Chris and Luke wandered across the glossy marble floors of the museum, through rooms of medieval texts, illuminated scrolls, signets etched in jade, intricately carved ivory urns, and Grecian statues striking heroic poses. Further in, the artefacts became less finely crafted—roughly hewn animals carved from volcanic tuff, stylised clay figurines with ancient fingerprints still visible, wobbly pictograms pressed into baked mud.
    As they circled back into the reception hall, Luke’s expression painted a hole where an ancient Sumerian map should be. Chris walked over to a distracted museum guide, who was eyeing a group of American tourists with one hand on her Taser.
    “Buon giorno,” ventured Chris. “Per favore…antico pastiglia?”
    “There’s a pharmacy across the road, two blocks south,” said the museum guide, twitchily watching as the tourists attempted to put a baseball jacket on a