The Theft of Magna Carta Read online

  Coppell said: “No. No, it isn’t.”

  Roger’s heart gave a wild leap and settled very slowly. He relaxed as slowly. He was not aware of the beading of perspiration on his forehead and upper lip, or of the fact that he gradually changed colour, betraying his feelings more in relief than he had under tension. At last Coppell shifted in his chair, sitting upright, placing both sets of fingers on the edge of his desk.

  “But—” he began, and gulped.

  What the hell is he playing at? Roger wondered; but he did not go tense again.

  “There are problems,” went on Coppell. “Of promotion.”

  “Promotion,” Roger echoed.

  “That’s right. No prospects.”

  Roger said hesitantly: “I don’t quite understand you. No prospects of what?”

  “Don’t be a bloody fool,” Coppell burst out. “There are no prospects of promotion for you, Handsome.” Good God, he was under strain at least as much as Roger! “Dead end. And you’re not a dead-end man.”

  “Oh,” Roger said, and then weakly: “No.” He had not grasped the full significance of what Coppell had said, and that was his, Roger’s, fault: it could not have been put more plainly. But – why put it at all? He slipped his right hand to his jacket pocket to a silver cigarette case which he seldom used.

  “Smoke if you want to,” Coppell said. “I’ve cut out cigarettes – cigars in the evening is my limit now.” He watched Roger light up while he went on in a voice which was much easier if a little hoarse. “The fact is, I hope to be going in the next six months. I recommended you for the next in succession, but the proposal was turned down.” Roger felt a sudden dowsing of spirits. “General feeling is that we’ve had too many short-term commanders in the past few years. Each man puts a stamp on the job. I was only a stand-in – you know that as well as I do – lasted longer than I expected.” Coppell gave a fleeting grin. “The V.I.P.s – and this includes the Home Secretary and the permanent secretaries there – all agree that we want to establish a team of commanders for each of the departments – deputies, the lot – at a fairly young age level. Forty or thereabouts. There’s going to be a concentrated effort to increase efficiency – prevention at least as much as detection – and the team selected has to be one which can and will stick together for a longish period. Ten years or more.” Coppell drew a deep breath. “Rules you out.”

  “Yes,” Roger admitted. “But it’s a damned good plan.”

  “Think so?” Coppell was obviously relieved at this reaction.

  “I don’t see how we can get better results if we don’t have something like this,” Roger went on. He had steadied completely and was quite calm. More, he felt more warmly than he ever had towards Coppell, who had obviously hated the job of giving him this news. It was pretty clear now what was to follow: they wouldn’t make him retire, they simply pointed out the disadvantages of not staying in the Force. He felt a warmth ooze from him, he was sweating again, but there was no tension; rather, a kind of hollow feeling.

  “Good,” Coppell said, enthusiastically. “Glad that’s what you feel. Well now, cards on the table. We – I’m speaking for the commissioners, A.C.s and commanders, we met yesterday afternoon – thought you should know this, and also that if you decide to take an outside job, no one would blame you. You could get a ten-year contract at three times the money you’re getting here if you went now, and you would be released. See?”

  “Clearly,” Roger said.

  “That’s why I tried to find out whether you want to go—”

  Roger didn’t answer.

  “Let’s have it straight,” Coppell said, more aggressive than he had been since this interview had started. “I got the idea you don’t want to go. That retirement is anathema to you. Right?”

  Roger drew a deep breath. “Right.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” declared Coppell, with sudden, unexpected warmth. “That’s what the doctor ordered! I stuck my neck out, too. I said this was how you would respond. All the same – think about it. Have to put yourself first in these things, you know. No one else can lead your life for you.” He was speaking very quickly, as if getting through something that had to be said as quickly as he could. “Can they?”

  “No,” Roger agreed, and went on gruffly: “Supposing you give it to me straight, sir. What are you covering up?”

  “Covering up, my foot,” growled Coppell. “Covering nothing. The point is, you’re one of the most experienced men in the Force. Got a better record of cases solved than anyone else. There are only three other senior officers here who have your kind of general experience and you have one thing the others haven’t got. A wider range of contacts. Do you know you’ve been to more foreign countries on assignment than anyone else on the Force? America half a dozen times, Australia, South Africa, nearly every country in Europe – you name it, you’ve worked with the Forces in those places and always done a damned good job.” As Roger began to sway under this unexpected praise, Coppell gave a sudden, lopsided grin, and went on: “Can’t understand it. Always rubbed me the wrong way but you’ve got on with everyone else. White, black, yellow, or what-have-you. I must have brought the worst out in you.”

  Roger didn’t speak until it was obvious that Coppell was waiting for comment; so he said: “Well, something’s bringing the best out of you now!”

  “That’s enough, that’s enough,” growled Coppell. “Truth is, whether I want to admit it or not, you’ve got a better record in what you could call public relationship than anyone. Even have the press eating out of your hand half the time. And what the Yard needs is two things, Handsome. Your experience and knowledge and your ability to get on with people. So we don’t want you to go.”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Roger.

  “Surprise, surprise,” Coppell retorted gruffly. “It’s a fact. I’ve authority to tell you that if you’ll stay in your present rank for another six years, then you’ll be given a supplementary rank which hasn’t been named yet, carrying a twenty per cent raise in income. Which is pretty well commander’s pay. I don’t know whether they will really give you a fancy title. I do know they’ll want to call on your general knowledge and experience and that thing you’ve got they call a flair. They want to cash in on you, that’s the truth of it. You’ve always been known as the glamour boy of the Yard and they want to use you to improve the Yard’s image while they improve performance. Not that performance is so bad. Well!” Coppell leaned back, huge against the back of his chair. “How does it sound, Handsome?”

  Roger West sat upright, looked at Coppell steadily, raised both hands from the arms of his chair and dropped them again. He started to speak, couldn’t find words, raised and dropped his hands again, and then said gruffly: “The stuff that dreams are made of.”

  “Handsome,” Coppell said, coming forward and stretching out his hand, “I’m bloody glad. I really am. I’m bloody glad.”

  His hand crushed Roger’s.

  The odd thing was that Roger simply couldn’t speak. And he didn’t as he moved toward the door, Coppell ushering him out, a gratified Coppell whose opinion was vindicated, who in his peculiar way was as eager to put the Yard before his own interests as Roger was.

  “As soon as it’s been made official you can tell the world,” Coppell said. “For the time being, keep it to yourself, Handsome.”

  “Of course,” Roger said. “Of course.”

  He went out.

  He did not go to his office but down in the lift to the ground floor. He went out into the bright sunlight of Victoria Street and crossed to the other side, then took the side streets toward the river. At first he could hardly believe that what he had heard was true; could hardly take it in. If he had ever dreamed of a job it was something like this: he had not envisaged anything as good, nothing like as gratifying, but he had always hankered after a job which wa
s a kind of roving commission. Once or twice it crossed his mind that in a way the Powers That Be were taking him off routine work and giving him a consolation prize, but it wasn’t that. Others had been virtually compelled to retire at forty-five, one or two even earlier. This wasn’t a sop to his pride, this was a job the Yard needed done.

  He reached the river opposite the great new commercial buildings. The Thames had never looked brighter, the pleasure boats were gay, the barges solid and purposeful. He drank in the view, the sunlight and the news which Coppell had given him. If there was a flaw it was that he couldn’t tell a soul yet; not even Janet.

  But wouldn’t she be in seventh heaven when she was home and he could tell her!

  When he turned away from the river, a cab was approaching, its “For Hire’’ sign up. He hailed it, got in, said: “New Scotland Yard,” and was startled when the driver said: “Right away, Mr. West.” And a moment later, through the open section of the partition, he wanted to know: “Caught any good crooks lately?”

  Roger grinned.

  And then he threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  When he reached the Yard again he was still in a mood for laughter. This mood of elation wouldn’t last, of course, his spirits were bound to droop, but he would always have the sense of deep satisfaction that he had now. The job would need defining, but that wasn’t important: what mattered was that his future was settled in a way that could not reasonably be bettered.

  At last he was back in his office.

  It was nearly twelve o’clock, nearly time for lunch! Lunch. He looked through his files, but no messages of any consequence had come in. There was his own note, to call and talk to Kempton. Was this the right occasion? He decided that it wasn’t: his mood of elation would reveal itself too clearly. What he needed was a good, solid job to get his teeth into; it was time he came out of the clouds.

  His external telephone bell rang.

  “West,” he said, as he picked it up.

  “Oh, Mr. West.” It was Batten from Salisbury in his unmistakable voice. “I’m sorry to worry you again but I am rather concerned about this man Caldicott. I haven’t asked my chief, Inspector Isherwood, if we can call in the Yard yet, in fact there’s nothing officially we could ask you to come for, but—well, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Caldicott hasn’t been down here to set up an art theft. An officer I think I told you about is taking some photographs of him and a man and woman who were with him last night and this morning. She’s at the Leech Gallery now. It’s a very good one, and the owner and an assistant go around to the sales – auctions and private sales – in the area, and they have very good judgement; by provincial standards, of course. I had a word with Jacob Leech and he thinks he’s made a big discovery: some Old Masters bought from a local farmhouse – gentleman-farmer kind of place. If he’s right he’s got a Gainsborough, two Constables, and a Watteau. Now what would this Caldicott and his friends be doing there, do you think?”

  Almost without a pause, Roger answered: “Valuing the pictures.”

  “Or identifying them,” responded Batten. “Same thing really.” He seemed to gulp before going on: “Mr. West, it has to be unofficial, well, at best semi-official, but could you arrange for a Yard expert to come and see these pictures? This afternoon, I mean. If they are what Leech thinks then we ought to place a special guard on that shop tonight, but I don’t think my chief would agree unless he had more than guesswork to go on. And that’s all I have, really, isn’t it?”

  Roger said: “I see what you mean.”

  He needed that job to get his teeth into, but couldn’t pose as an expert in old paintings or fine art. Yet Batten was obviously concerned, not without reason. Caldicott’s interest in the paintings could indeed mean that a theft was being planned. He, Roger, wanted to talk to Kempton, and unless Kempton were on a job he couldn’t get away from, this afternoon would be the right time after all.

  Batten was holding on patiently.

  “What do you want me to do?” Roger asked at last.

  “Well, if we could get these photographs developed quickly – those of the couple with Caldicott, I mean – and send them up to you, it might help. They might be only interested buyers, but last night they told me they were just passing through and wouldn’t stay for the actual auction. That could be Lie Number One. Could I send the photos up for you to look at?”

  “Yes,” Roger decided. “And I’ll have one of our specialists in art thefts have a look at them. How will your chap come?”

  “As a matter of fact, sir, it’s a young woman, Detective Officer Linda Prell,” Batten told him. “She’ll come up by road on her own, Mr. West – she’s off-duty this afternoon so she can be semi-official, too. Shall I send her straight to you at the Yard? She should arrive by half-past three.”

  “Yes, do that,” Roger said, and soon rang off on Batten’s overenthusiastic expressions of appreciation.

  He dialled Kempton but someone else answered, left a message for the chief inspector to call him, and then pondered Batten’s insistence as well as the reputation of the man Caldicott. Batten would not have pushed so hard unless he felt pretty certain there was good cause, but for some reason he didn’t want to consult his superiors yet.

  Roger smiled; but then, in his present mood it did not need much to make him smile.

  Earlier that day Sarah and Neil Stephenson stood at the back of Leech’s Gallery as Caldicott walked round, examining a great number of pictures with extraordinary care. The pictures were crowded together, some of the frames touching, because there was so little room. Dealers from London as well as Bristol, Birmingham, Bournemouth and Southampton were there with a great number of runners from all over England. The pictures were on show prior to auction, at a nearby hotel – the Hart, not the Rose and Briar. Special parking arrangements had been made by the police so that the grounds of the big new College of Further Education were being used as well as the car park of the Hart Hotel. If one turned, one could see a distant view of the cathedral spire beneath a sun already high. There were no clouds anywhere.

  Hovering among the crowd of twenty or thirty people was a dark-haired girl in her early twenties.

  She wore a flowered linen two-piece suit and a linen hat, carried a linen handbag, and wore shoes covered with the same linen; somehow all of these things tended to make her look as if she was on holiday. Now and again she was very close to Caldicott; and now and again very close to the Stephensons. Her collar was high at the neck, covering the chain of a heavy locket, the kind in which Victorians kept photographs of great sentimental value. She fiddled with this frequently, as if the catch was loose and she was afraid of losing it.

  Stephenson gripped Sarah’s arm just after this young woman had passed them. She was now standing by Caldicott, and fiddling yet again with the locket. Stephenson bent close to Sarah, and whispered: “The girl in the linen suit is taking photographs of us and of Frankie. Did you know?”

  Sarah asked in a languid voice which carried to several people nearby: “Are you sure?”

  “You know I’m sure.”

  “Then what are you going to do about it?” asked Sarah, more softly.

  Stephenson didn’t answer, but turned toward the door, which was propped open because the room was so hot and stuffy. A bluebottle flew in and buzzed on a vicious note; flies hovered in the doorway on their senseless, patternless flight. Stephenson walked past the window and Sarah pretended to take no notice; instead, she looked about the paintings and the people, then focused her gaze on Caldicott until he turned to look at her. The girl in the flowered linen was on one side, apparently oblivious, yet she kept glancing at the door.

  Stephenson came back, after ten minutes. By that time Caldicott was by Sarah, and his expression betrayed the fact that Sarah had told him what Stephenson suspected.

  “You two stay in here,” Stephenso
n said. “I’ve some things to fix. Don’t come out until I return for you.”

  If Caldicott resented the way this was said, he showed no sign; but there was a glow in his eyes as Stephenson went out; and he took Sarah’s arm.

  “There’s a lovely Turner over in the corner,” he declared. “Come and see.”

  There was more life to Sarah’s face in the next few minutes than often showed for hours on end. Neither of them noticed the girl in flowered linen go out.

  Stephenson was gone for twenty minutes, during which time a little group of Japanese came in, and, soon afterward, John Withers. Withers had obviously seen the collection before and was simply putting in an appearance. Leech, who seemed to be in a dozen places at once, spent only a minute with him, then approached the Japanese.

  “Good morning,” one of these said. “We are from the Kyoto Gallery in Japan. We were in London and we heard . . .”

  His voice faded as Withers came up to Sarah and Caldicott, was very amiable, hoped they would find time to visit him, and was then called aside by a friend.

  More and more people arrived, and finally Stephenson returned and said at once: “Let’s go.”

  Caldicott’s lips tightened; he was obviously annoyed by the other’s peremptory manner.

  “What’s all this about being photographed?” he asked brusquely. “Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough not to take chances,” answered Stephenson. He was breathing hard, as if very agitated. “You go straight back to London, Frankie. I’ll call you at your flat, and pay you later.”

  “Neil—” began Caldicott stiffly.

  “That’s it. That’s everything,” Stephenson said sharply.

  “Don’t you even want a report on those pictures? They’re absolutely genuine.”