The Theft of Magna Carta Read online

  Linda had left the shop just after eleven o’clock.

  Why wasn’t she here? Why hadn’t she been back hours ago?

  The assistant to Jacob Leech, a Miss Kuttle, had seen her leave but not known where she had gone. Two uniformed policemen and men in two patrol cars, told to pass the shop at regular intervals, had not seen her. Beyond this, Batten had made no inquiries but he knew that he would soon have to report to the inspector-in-charge. He had never been more troubled.

  Another police car turned into the carriageway of the station, but still it wasn’t Linda; he glanced at his watch again and saw that it was exactly three o’clock. He must report her as missing, at once. As he reached the chief inspector’s office the door opened and Chief Inspector Isherwood himself came out. They bumped into each other.

  “Sorry,” grunted Isherwood.

  “Sorry, sir,” gasped Batten. “Can you—”

  “Whatever it is must wait until later this afternoon, I’m late already.” Isherwood, tall, dark, with a strong Lancashire accent, actually began to push past Batten, who dodged to let him pass and saw his large and at that moment uncompromising back. In a moment Isherwood would have started down the stairs.

  “Sir!” cried Batten. “She’s missing!”

  Isherwood, if he heard, took no notice but turned the corner which led to the head of the stairs. Batten, feeling very cold, did not know what to do. One couldn’t defy the station chief, and Isherwood—

  Isherwood reappeared, asking as he turned the corner: “Who’s missing?”

  “Linda – Woman Police Constable – Prell, sir.”

  “From that job at the Leech Gallery, you mean?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hasn’t she been back?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Or telephoned?”

  “No.”

  “Any idea what’s happened to her?”

  “No, sir,” Batten said, and told the other exactly what he had done so far.

  Isherwood stood unmoving. A head taller than the sergeant, he stared at the other with the kind of intensity which could throw a scare into a lesser man, but Batten matched his gaze. Another man came slowly and heavily up the stairs and turned the corner, almost bumped into Isherwood, backed and blurted: “Sorry, sir.” It was one of the younger uniformed men at the station. Isherwood nodded and the man went along the passage to the offices, much more briskly.

  “All right,” Isherwood said. “It’s absolute priority to find her. Have you put a general call out to all of our people?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Do it. Then come back and see me.” As Batten hurried past him and towards the stairs, the chief inspector opened a door and called out clearly: “Telephone the Mayor’s secretary and give my apologies – urgent business has cropped up.” The door banged, and Batten did not hear anything else. Relieved by the seriousness with which Isherwood had reacted to the news, troubled by Linda’s disappearance, deeply worried because he had taken so much into his own hands, Batten hurried to the Information Room, where three men sat at a desk with earphones clipped over their heads and another stood looking at a map.

  “Please give exact location of the incident,” one of the men was saying.

  “Joe,” Batten said to the man by the map, and the man turned as if in protest, saw Batten’s expression, and looked startled. “Joe,” Batten said again, “I sent Linda out on a special job at Leech’s this morning. She hasn’t come back. The Old Man wants a general call put out for her.”

  “Joe” said: “What do you think’s happened to her?”

  “I wish I could guess. Will you make that Hampshire, Southampton, Bournemouth—”

  “The lot,” Joe promised, and he moved to a microphone standing on a long, narrow table, switched on, and said: “Salisbury 34 speaking, stand by for a general call.” He motioned to Batten, covering the microphone as he whispered: “You do it. You know all about it.”

  Batten gulped; but when he began to speak his voice was as clear as it could be and the information he broadcast was both lucid and concise. The burden of it was simple: Woman Police Constable Linda Prell, last seen at Leech’s Gallery, Salisbury, wearing a flowered linen suit and . . . was wanted for urgent consultations at Salisbury Police Headquarters. All officers were to assist in finding her and giving her this message.

  From mouth to mouth, telephone to telephone, radio to radio, the message was passed, and with it a mood of concern. Echoed and re-echoed throughout the county and neighbouring police districts were words and phrases of alarm.

  “That’s a queer one,” a man would say.

  “That means she’s missing.”

  “Why wouldn’t she report if she could?”

  “There’s trouble here, don’t you make any mistake.”

  And everywhere the police began their probe, in Salisbury and far beyond. But there was no report, not even of a metallic blue Capri into which Linda Prell had disappeared. Her car was in the car park of the Hart Hotel, where she had taken it before going to the preview. There was simply disquiet, increasing as every half-hour passed without any news.

  Roger West was back at his desk, working more intensively, by three o’clock. The elation of the morning remained, but two things had occurred to him. If this new job was to be officially created soon his desk must be as clear as he could get it; and if he was to handle the job well, he must be given some clear terms of reference. Largely because he could not discuss it with anybody, he was beginning to feel tension building up out of impatience to know more. There had never been a time when he needed a job to get his teeth into more. There was just a possibility that the visit from the woman police officer from Salisbury would give him a stimulus. By half-past three, he began to wait for news that she had arrived. At twenty to four, the interoffice telephone rang, and he lifted the receiver almost as a reflex action.

  “West.”

  “The commander,” Coppell said; he had a voice which vibrated uncomfortably over the microphone.

  News of the new job? “Yes, sir?”

  “Have you had a young woman officer to see you from Wiltshire?”

  “One’s due to see me at any time,” Roger answered, taken completely by surprise. “How did you know?”

  “It’s a garbled story,” said Coppell, “and I can’t wait to help sort it out. But Sir Richard Way, the chief constable for the South West Federation, has asked for help. Apparently this girl hasn’t reported for some hours. May be a false alarm, may be something to worry about. Wiltshire thinks it is. Go down there right away”I’ll be off in—” Roger began, and then exclaimed: “One other thing, sir.”

  “What?”

  “Chief Inspector Kempton knows as much as anybody about Caldicott. I’d like to—”

  “If you want him, take him,” Coppell interrupted. “Take anything and anyone you need.” He put the receiver down heavily, obviously very much in a hurry.

  Roger dialled Kempton’s number on the interoffice machine. It rang for some seconds before a man answered: “Chief inspectors’ office.”

  “Mr. Kempton, please.”

  “Half a mo’,” the man said, and then called in an echoing voice: “Alan! Telephone.”

  Roger held on. The call, the situation in the office where five chief inspectors worked together reminded him vividly of his own early days as a comparatively senior officer. There had been a camaraderie which echoed over the telephone now as well as down the years. Once a superintendency and one’s own office was achieved a barrier came up which was never really broken down. Roger’s closest friends among superintendents were men he had known in his C.I. days. What put one on one’s own? Responsibility?

  Another voice sounded.

  “Sorry to keep you, I had—”

  “This is Superintendent Wes
t,” Roger interrupted. “How long will it take you to be ready to drive to Salisbury with me?”

  There was only a moment’s hesitation; a hush, as if that barrier was descending, before Kempton answered.

  “Five minutes, sir.”

  That was just the response Roger would have made to the same question twenty – it was twenty! – years ago.

  “We’ll use my car,” Roger decided. “It will be outside the Victoria Street entrance.” He rang off on whatever remark Kempton made, then dialled the garage to have his car sent round. Next, he put his head round the communicating door and caught Venables, the tall sergeant, breaking a piece of chocolate at his mouth. “I’m going to Salisbury,” he said, “and taking Chief Inspector Kempton with me.”

  “Verumph goo’, sir.” Part of the chocolate disappeared in a gulp. “Sorry, sir!”

  Roger waved his hand in a “forget it” gesture, and went out. Dodging back into his office he picked up his bag, rather like a doctor’s bag and containing everything he was likely to want in an investigation; experience had taught him not to rely on getting what he needed at other police stations. This bag was always ready and he did not need to check it. He crossed to the door and his interoffice telephone rang. “Damn!” he exclaimed, but a moment’s delay wasn’t really important, and he crossed to it. “West.”

  “Sorry to worry you, sir,” said Kempton. “Shall I bring my bag?”

  “Yes,” Roger said. “One should, always.”

  “Right, sir!”

  Five minutes later, Roger was by the side of his car, a dark blue Rover 3 litre, when Kempton came striding from the corner of Broadway, having come the long way around.

  He carried a rather larger bag than Roger’s, black and metal-edged. He was a man of medium height but Roger had forgotten how very broad and thickset he was; and had forgotten how tough-looking, with heavy features and a broken nose. Something, probably the dark blue eyes deep beneath the jutting black eyebrows, softened his face. His jaw was massive, with a deep cleft.

  “Sorry to keep you, sir.”

  “If I never had to wait for anyone longer than that, I wouldn’t have anything to complain about,” Roger responded. “Go round the other side.” He took the wheel, and soon he was weaving through the traffic toward Victoria and the South and Southwest. “I can’t tell you very much because there isn’t much to tell. Salisbury sent a request for help, and they wouldn’t have done that if they weren’t badly worried.” He explained all he knew, and then asked: “What would you do next?”

  “Pick up Caldicott?” suggested Kempton.

  “I think we should trace him and watch him,” Roger said. “It’s too early to pick him up. Odd,” he added to himself. “Usually we’re called in too late. This time we’ve been called before a crime has been committed, as far as I can see.” When Kempton didn’t speak, he went on: “Do you know Salisbury?”

  “Slightly,” answered Kempton. “I was down there two years ago when they had the robbery from the local castle. We were lucky – picked up the man and found a Reubens and Tintoretto he’d taken. The inspector-in-charge was a Manchester man, Jack Isherwood.”

  “It still is,” Roger said.

  “Good!”

  “Is he all right?”

  “First-class man to work with, sir, yes.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Do you know a Detective Sergeant Batten?”

  Kempton gave an explosive chuckle, then glanced quickly at Roger to check whether the laugh was acceptable. Was he, Roger West, supposed to be such a humourless creature? Kempton looked straight ahead, and said: “Man rather like a porker to look at?”

  “I know what you mean,” Roger said. “How good is he?”

  “I’d say very good indeed, sir, but a bit of a lone wolf. Often being called over the coals for doing things off his own bat.” Now Kempton’s look at Roger was almost sly. “I don’t just mean that in an emergency he would make snap decisions, but he has a tendency to follow his own line of reasoning and to plan an investigation, as it were, without consulting anyone else. Quite a character, sir.”

  Alan Kempton seemed to be a good judge of men.

  “It looks as if he’s been at it again,” Roger said. “We’ll soon see. Arrange for Caldicott to be watched, will you?”

  Immediately, Kempton took the radio-telephone off its hook and gave instructions to the Yard. Then he sat back, and Roger concentrated on his driving. Twice during the next two hours word came through that there was no news of Linda Prell. Roger saw Kempton looking about him at the rolling countryside, obviously enjoying the drive, while he himself took much of it in as he drove. There were few parts of the country he liked better.

  They were leaving Stockbridge by the steep hill, just going off the dual carriageway, when a Ford Capri, a metallic blue colour which showed very bright in the sun, swept past a Morris Minor and went onto the new section of the motorway toward London.

  In the boot of that car was Linda Prell.

  “Not a word, not a sign,” Isherwood said when they were in his office, just after half-past five. “Everyone has been alerted. We haven’t broadcast that she’s missing yet, but we’ve asked local farmworkers and farmers to keep a lookout for anything unusual. So far, nothing at all’s turned up. Linda Prell walked out of Leech’s and vanished. It’s as simple as that, crazy as it sounds.” He looked from Roger to Kempton, and went on. “I think it’s time we questioned Caldicott and the Stephensons. I hope you agree, Mr. West.”

  Roger asked: “Do you know where the Stephensons are?”

  “Yes. In Bath, at the Pump Hotel,” Isherwood answered. “We could send someone there or we could bring them back here,” he said. “Which do you think is better?”

  Roger gave Kempton a moment or two in which to speak, and then answered: “I’d like to know who else was in the gallery this morning – who else might have thought the policewoman was taking pictures of them. I don’t think we should take it for granted that the Stephensons and Caldicott are involved. Will you be satisfied if we have them watched?” He turned on all his charm as he smiled at Isherwood.

  “No,” answered the Salisbury man promptly. “But I’ll settle for it! And Jacob Leech, who owns the gallery, can probably tell you who else was there. Have you done anything about the man Caldicott?”

  “He’s being watched,” Kempton answered very quickly. “If we need him we can pick him up any time we like, sir.”

  “I wish to God we could say the same of Linda Prell,” growled Isherwood.

  7

  Cool Nerve

  Neil Stephenson sat in a lounge at the Pump Hotel, in Bath, watching the television news. Sarah sat by his side, dressed in an ice-blue suit which made her seem even more aloof, apart, from everyone else. Most who came into the lounge glanced at her, but she encouraged no one to look twice. The BBC announcer was his usual bland self, the reporters covered various items of news including a fete at Bristol with their customary assurance. Then suddenly a photograph was thrown onto the screen, and both Neil Stephenson and Sarah sat up and stared intently.

  “One of the biggest manhunts ever staged in the Southwest of England began in Salisbury, Wiltshire, late this afternoon,” the announcer said. “Here is John Wilberforce with on-the-spot details.” His voice faded, another man’s replaced it, brisker, and with a hint of Wiltshire accent.

  “The photograph on your screens,” he said promptly, “is that of Linda Prell of the Salisbury Division of the Wiltshire Constabulary. Woman Police Constable Prell vanished this morning after being at an art gallery – the Leech Gallery, where I am now standing – where some Old Masters were on preview, prior to auction. . . .”

  The picture changed.

  The reporter stood in front of the shop with his microphone round his neck, showing some of the paintings in the window. There were close
-ups of the Constables and a Turner, an interview with bearded Leech, mostly explanation of the way the pictures had been discovered: “. . . The treasures have been hidden in this isolated Wiltshire farmhouse for at least a hundred years . . .” There was another change of picture and a sweeping view of the cathedral spire over the old tiled roofs of nearby buildings. “Now the quiet of this lovely cathedral city has been shattered by the disappearance of the young woman police officer. The Wiltshire police regard her disappearance as of such importance that they have asked Scotland Yard for help . . . Chief Superintendent Roger West arrived late this afternoon . . .”

  Roger’s picture appeared on the screen, and the reporter asked: “Have you been able to discover any clue to explain the missing officer’s disappearance, Superintendent?”

  “No,” Roger answered.

  Behind him hovered Isherwood and Batten, a discreet distance from the microphone and the camera.

  “Has any motive yet been discovered?”

  “None is yet proved,” Roger West answered briskly. “But there has been very little time. The Salisbury police haven’t lost a minute.”

  “Is there anything the public can do to help in the search?” demanded the reporter.

  “Yes indeed,” West said, and his face was brought into close-up so that he appeared to be almost in the room where the Stephensons sat. Everyone was watching intently except an elderly man whose newspaper kept rustling over a stomach which rose and fell rhythmically. “Every man and woman in Salisbury, in Wiltshire, in the neighbouring counties can search their memories for this young woman . . .”

  His picture faded; a very large blow-up of Linda Prell’s replaced it.

  “We need to trace this policewoman’s movements from the time she was seen to leave Leech’s Gallery at about ten forty-five this morning,” Roger West went on. “A local newspaperman saw her go. Meanwhile every available police officer and several military units will begin a search at dawn tomorrow . . . The help of the public is urgently required . . . Farmers and farmworkers are particularly requested to report anything even slightly unusual. A car parked in an unusual place, for instance: reports of noises: cigarette ends, pieces of litter, anything which might have been left in a copse, a corner of a field, in a shed or empty house . . .”