by Will North
She was just lifting her dimpled glass and collecting her change when she stopped, the mug in mid-air: “Wait. This is your property, isn’t it?”
Ronan laughed: a warm, rumbly laugh: “Reckon you’re a detective after all. It is. Have you a name?”
Davies smiled. “Morgan. Morgan Davies. Where’s this house of yours, then?”
NOW, SIPPING HER smooth, malty pint and thinking about the Hansen case, she was suddenly aware of a presence at her shoulder. It was Ronan. For a big man he moved through crowds like a ghost.
“Dinner, Morgan?”
“What’s actually edible tonight, Garry? And since when does this pub have table service?”
“The Blisland Inn has table service whenever you enter, luv, and I’d recommend the Moroccan lamb with couscous tonight.”
“What, no one else ordering it?”
Ronan put a big hand on her shoulder, leaned in and said, so no one could hear, “Long day, Morgan?”
She smiled up at him and patted his warm hand. “Long week, actually. Lamb sounds great tonight. Thank you, Garry.”
She watched him reenter the fray at the bar. Chap’s a gentleman, he is. I could get used to that. Maybe.
The renovated stone hay barn she leased from Garry had felt like home right from the start. It shared many of the characteristics of her former home in Newlyn: the barn’s kitchen was newly-appointed with stainless steel appliances and polished granite counters. The cupboards were painted the warm white of Devon clotted cream. A long pine dining table separated the kitchen from the sitting room. The concrete floor was heated by electric coils from beneath, a treat to the feet. Facing the coal fired stove set against the barn’s stone wall were two deeply cushioned chairs and a small settee, covered in white denim slipcovers. She’d wondered about that, the practicality of white. Get them dirty or stained, Garry had explained, you just toss them in the washer with soap and bleach. Good as new! She had to admit the thick cotton twill was a lot more comforting than her leather upholstery in Newlyn.
Ancient granite steps, the stone no doubt cut from moorland granite, led to the second level bedroom and bath, the latter of which included both a shower and soaking tub. Set into the north-facing wall of the bedroom, French doors opened to a small balcony looking out across Bodmin Moor.
But it took a couple of weeks before she finally understood why she felt so comforted in her new home, just as she had in Newlyn: it was the view. In Newlyn her vista included the fishing docks below, the arc of the city of Penzance to the northeast, and the whole expanse of Mounts Bay. At Blisland, she also had wide views, but this time of the grey-green moorland of Bodmin and, to the north, the castle-like granite summit of Brown Willy tor, not so different from the manmade castle upon St. Michael’s Mount in Penzance. From her balcony she could see for what seemed like miles. That’s when what seemed so right dawned on her: she had prospect. She had warning. No collapsing mountain of water-soaked coal slag could roar through the fog and nearly obliterate her village and the people who lived there. There was no Aberfan disaster possible here. If trouble of any kind approached, whether natural or manmade, she’d see it coming long in advance and be prepared.
She was safe.
Twenty-Five
ON WEDNESDAY, NINTH May, Dicky Townsend stepped off the First Great Western train from Bristol and walked out to the Maidenhead railway station’s forecourt. An Elite Cab idling at the curb took him a few minutes north to Cookham, an ancient stone and brick village on the leafy banks of the upper River Thames and the headquarters of D.K. Chalmers Rare Coins and Antiquities. At the edge of the village, the cab turned right into a long crushed gravel drive leading to what looked to Dicky like a riding academy. Fields punctuated with jumps stretched away to the river bank and riders were taking horses through their paces. Chalmers’s business was in an almost windowless brick building some distance from the stables.
Dicky paid the cabbie, and then pressed the entry button mounted on the door jamb, smiled into the camera mounted to one side, and announced himself when the intercom light illuminated. He was wearing the same hired suit he had worn when he first visited Charlotte Johns. The lock buzzed, and he entered what looked like a branch of the British Museum. There were ranks of glass-faced cabinets holding ancient objects from, as near as he could tell, all over the world. He padded down a long, thickly carpeted passage and found an office at the end lined with books and presided over by a portly fellow in his apparent sixties. The man, wearing what looked to Dicky like a bespoke suit, did not wear a tie at the open neck of his starched white spread-collared shirt. His head was shaved and glistened as if oiled. Chalmers did not rise from his ornately carved mahogany desk to greet his visitor.
“Ah, Mr. Townsend. Declan Chalmers. Welcome. I do not normally meet anyone on such short notice, but your Sunday email was, shall I say, compelling…if it was accurate, of course.” Chalmers held a lifted eyebrow in question.
Townsend did not respond to the challenge.
“You have traveled some distance to see me today; I thought you might like a bite of lunch upon your arrival. Our private chef has provided a light repast.” He gestured to a side table set with platters of salad greens, cheese, sliced meats, and an opened bottle of claret.
“Glass of wine to begin, then?” Chalmers suggested.
Townsend found his voice: “That would be splendid, Mr. Chalmers.”
“Please avail yourself. And pour a glass for me, as well, if you would be so kind.” His smile was as warm as a wolf’s.
It was only then that Townsend noticed the wheelchair folded against the far side of the desk. Chalmers followed Townsend’s eyes. “Riding accident. Steeplechase. Many years ago. The stables are my wife’s business.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It got me into this somewhat sedentary little enterprise and I’m a lot better at this than I was at riding horses, I promise you!”
Townsend was not sure whether this was a boast or a veiled threat. It was his nature to be suspicious. He set a glass in front of Chalmers and took his own seat on one of two tufted black leather chairs facing the desk.
Chalmers stuck a bulbous, bloodshot nose beneath the rim of his glass, sniffed, sipped, and pronounce it: “Adequate.”
“Now, you have, I gather, some photographs for me to examine?”
“I do, Mr. Chalmers.”
“Please, it’s Declan. And you’re…?”
“Dicky.”
“Hmm. ‘Dicky’ as in unreliable? Dicky leg? Dicky heart?”
Townsend looked at Chalmers hard: “Richard, if you prefer.” He opened his thin black briefcase and slapped a large brown envelope on the desk. Chalmers nodded. Clearly, Townsend was not easily intimidated. He would be a formidable negotiator. Chalmers removed the enlarged photos from the envelope and studied them carefully for several minutes. Then he pressed a button on his speaker phone and said, “Charles, would you be so kind as to bring us a decanted eighty-two Margaux?”
Chalmers swiveled his chair toward Townsend. “You know about the Treasure Act, I assume?”
“Of course.”
“Unless I miss my guess, and I seldom do, this is a very significant pre-Roman hoard. Iron Age. Some bits possibly older. One of the finest I’ve seen or even read about. It is worth…well…millions, as you no doubt know. Why wouldn’t the finder report it to the Crown for full value?”
“In a hurry, he says.”
Chambers’s face darkened. “Stolen is it?”
“Do you think I’d try that, Mr. Chalmers? I’ve done my research on you.”
Another point in Townsend’s favor, but Chalmers pressed: “Then, what? He’s not some nighthawk, is he?”
“No, a farmer. Found the artifacts while plowing his own land.”
“And that would be where?”
Dicky smiled: “Sorry, Declan. Later. Perhaps.”
A young man in chef’s whites knocked and entered bearing a decanter of red wine and two lar
ge crystal balloon glasses. He poured a small measure into one glass for Chalmers and waited. Chalmers tasted and nodded. The young man poured both glasses a third full, removed the other glasses and bottle, and withdrew without a word.
“Why not sell it on your own, then?” Chalmers asked, swirling the wine in his glass as if the movement were part of his thinking process.
Dicky swirled and sipped from his glass. The wine was rich, almost smoky, and velvet soft. He waited to reply, as if savoring it like the connoisseur he was not.
“For the simple reason,” he answered, “that while I am a dealer—a small dealer—in antiquities, I do not have the contacts through which to sell something of such great value and import. You do, and are too professional to do something untoward or unwise. In short, I come to propose a mutually beneficial business arrangement: my client’s treasure, your expertise, your share.”
Declan Chalmers nodded and smiled. “Would you be so kind as to fill two plates while I top up your glass?”
“WHAT DO YOU mean you lost him?” Connor barked into his mobile. ‘What the hell do I pay you for?”
Max Marchenko, wiry, ferret-faced former Ukrainian security police thug now resident in western England and employed by Connor, among others, for certain delicate tasks, shook his head. The English, he had long since decided, had no subtlety, no patience. They did not understand that in the fullness of time everyone betrays himself. It was Wednesday afternoon.
“Townsend parks at Bristol Temple Meads Station car park this morning,” Max said. His English was excellent, but he had trouble still with verb tenses. “He boards London train. I check platform after every returning train in afternoon. No Townsend.”
“His car’s still there?”
“No. It is now gone. My guess? He knows already he is being tailed. Gets off up the line at Keynsham station and takes cab back to Temple Meads. He never comes off train here.”
“So you did lose him.”
“Not exactly.”
“Well then how, exactly, would you describe it? You angling for early retirement, my friend?”
Max sighed. Connor was his most difficult client, and becoming more so as the old man aged. “I have plenty money set aside for retirement, Mr. Connor, so you either trust me or you do not. This makes no difference to me.”
Connor said nothing.
“You want opinion? He goes to Cornwall again. Only logical answer. In Ukrainian security we are taught to think with logic, not emotion. You understand? Like your Sherlock Holmes, yes? Whether this Archie is loyal or intends to betray you, he must acquire the goods first. Logical. You want me down there or no?”
In the office of his converted limestone tithe barn in Wiltshire, Connor stared out a window across the undulating, impossibly green spring fields. Here and there, his neighbor’s black and white Friesian cows, their blocky heads seemingly attached to the grass beneath them as if by some magnetic force, grazed the meadow beyond his hedgerow.
“All right, find him, Max. Have a chat, yeah? You don’t like what you hear, eliminate him. Got that? He’s playing me. I smell it. Only thing that matters is that trove this Hansen’s found. Find that, by whatever means, and I promise you’ll have a very large addition to that retirement fund you mentioned. Huge.”
“But Townsend has been with you for years, Mr. Connor…”
“He betrays me, he’s gone. Do I make myself clear?”
Max did not respond.
“And Max, do it elegantly, like you always do.”
Twenty-Six
THAT SAME WEDNESDAY morning when Townsend was in Cookham, Charlotte parked her car at a distance, walked to Higher Pennare, and peered around the corner of Archie’s farmhouse. His Land Rover was gone. She slipped into the house, went directly to his tiny office, and started up his computer. She was determined to find evidence that he was selling the farm. She stared at the screen for nearly a minute, wishing she knew more about computers, and especially Archie’s.
She knew that British Telecom was Archie’s mobile phone service provider, and guessed that it was his Internet service provider as well. She went to that site, typed in Archie’s name as the user name. Then she stared at the request for his password. She didn’t think Archie would be very imaginative about his password: at his age it would be too easy to forget. She tried HansenPennare and then PennareHansen. Neither was accepted. She tried other combinations and wondered if the BT web page would cut her off at some point. She thought a while longer, typed ThorsFarm, and suddenly she was in. She smiled: So obvious, Archie…
Charlotte did a search and brought up the current Savills’ listings for agricultural properties in Cornwall. There were several, but Higher Pennare was not among them. Were the men at the pub talking nonsense? No, they were too specific. She believed what she’d heard, though she did not know why. The news ate into her heart like a parasitic worm. Perhaps the farm had not yet been listed and that was why it did not appear on the Savills site.
She also checked his email correspondence, but it was limited. That did not surprise her. The messages were mostly about commodity prices, offers from equipment dealers, prices from seed and fertilizer suppliers, correspondence with a few other local farmers, although oddly enough, not Bobby Tregareth. Maybe, with Bobby being a neighbor, he didn’t need email to chat with his tenant.
Next, she clicked on My Pictures and found nothing. Finally, just before giving up, she clicked on My Videos. Most of these postings were instructional videos of new farming ideas from the local organization, “FarmCornwall.” But well down the list was a video file that caught her eye. It was labeled, “Thor’s Whore.”
She grinned. You randy devil, have you been filming us? She clicked open the file.
But the video was not of the two of them. No. The scene showed a crude raftered room she did not recognize. In the center was a table draped in black velvet with a burning candlestick. And beside the draped table, on a low settee, a woman was giving oral sex to a man, though his head was not in the frame. They seemed in a state of complete abandon. There was a moment’s pause as they shifted position and then she saw them: Archie and Bobby Tregareth’s partner, Joey. Abruptly, as if to erase the image from her mind, she shut down the computer.
She sat there for a few moments, then stood, looked around the kitchen she knew so well, left the house, walked down the hill to where she’d left her car, and considered her next steps.
LATER THAT WEDNESDAY morning, just after eleven, Archie Hansen turned off the A39 in Truro, drove down Falmouth Road, and then entered Lemon Street, following it into the center of the city. Joey Tregareth was by his side in his aging Land Rover. She scanned the facades of the grey granite three-story attached Georgian townhouses as they descended the hill, looking for the Truro branch of Savills, the estate agents.
“There!” Joey exclaimed. Hansen heard the excitement in her voice and smiled. Savills was on their left, its storefront painted a rich royal blue. Displayed within its high, white-framed windows were glossy photos of local houses and estates.
“Is this really happening, Archie?” Joey said, squeezing his thigh as he reversed into a parking space.
Hansen switched off the ignition, looked at the younger woman beside him, ripe and plump as a fuzzed peach and just as juicy, and pulled her into a kiss. “Are you ready for this?” he asked when they disengaged.
“Oh yes! No more dreary Cornwall, or Bobby, or that demanding baby, yes! I love you my rescuer, my priest, my Thor.” Her eyes glittered.
Hansen held up a forefinger: “No, the boy: he comes with us.”
“But….”
“The boy comes. We will be a family. And I will be his father.”
“Stepfather, you mean. Are you certain?”
“Thor demands it.”
Joey stared, silent and bewildered at the man beside her: her mentor, her guide, her lover. She had no idea he’d felt so strongly about the boy she’d named after him. So much of living was a mystery to her,
a mystery to which Archie gave form and order through his rituals and potions. Finally, she nodded, not so much in agreement as acquiescence. Much as she’d wanted a baby when she married, she had soon discovered she had little in the way of maternal instinct. And the fussing child wore her ragged.
“If you wish, my Thor, then it shall be. But what about Bobby?”
“He will never find us. Shall we begin?”
Joey almost bounced in her car seat. “Yes!” She made to open her door but he stopped her. “You will wait for me to open the door. Thor attends to his queen.” He circled the car and handed her down to the curbside. A light, almost misty rain, barely visible, had closed in on the market town.
Barbara Hunnicutt, the Savills agent with whom Archie had already spoken by phone, met them at reception and led them back to a small conference room.
“Tea? Some water, perhaps?”
Hansen looked at Joey.
“Water would be nice,” she said.
Hunnicutt, slender, mid-forties, salon blond, and fashionably dressed, fetched bottled water and two glasses and set them before them. Archie ignored his.
“I’ve put together a portfolio of properties between Marbella and Malaga,” Hunnicutt began. “You said on the phone you were looking for a proper house, not a flat. View of the sea. Two or three bedrooms. Shops nearby. And a pool. Am I right?”
Archie nodded.
“A pool, Archie?” Joey exclaimed.
“Where you can relax and the boy can play.”
“You do understand that such properties will be a bit dear? Did you have a target price?”
“Half a million pounds or thereabouts, whatever that is in Euros.”
Joey choked on her water. “Jesus, Archie!”
“Be still, luv.”
The estate agent wondered about this mismatched couple, but plunged ahead: “And this would be contingent upon the sale of your farm on the Lizard?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I have other resources. Oh, and a fireplace would be nice in winter.”