by James Becker
Throbs, beeps, and other noises from smartphones were not exactly unknown, and as Marsh had expected, Robin Jessop did precisely what most people would do. She opened up her handbag, took out her phone, pressed a button on the side of it, and then swiped her fingertip across the screen to wake it up. For a few seconds, she looked at the display, but apparently saw nothing to account for what she had just heard, the tracker being entirely covert in operation. She shrugged, put the phone back in her handbag, and turned her attention once again to her tablet computer.
A few minutes later, the man had appeared and bought two coffees. He and Jessop had talked together, and perhaps ten minutes after that both Jessop and the new arrival had left the establishment.
The moment the door closed behind them, Marsh stood up, folded his newspaper neatly, and slipped it into the side pocket of his coat. Then he, too, left the café and took up station about fifty yards behind them, easily matching their speed.
Although he already knew that the tracker was working, and that he could access the mobile phone network through his software and locate Jessop—or at least her mobile phone—to within a matter of yards as long as it was switched on and she was in an urban environment, he was curious enough about his assignment to rely upon his normal surveillance skills and simply see where they were going, if possible hear what they were talking about, and watch what they ended up doing.
6
Exeter, Devon
“What about the Italians?” Robin asked. “Do you think they’ve given up?”
Mallory shook his head in a decisive manner. “Not a chance, in my opinion. They were quite prepared to kill both of us in your apartment at Dartmouth—I’m quite sure of that—and then they did their best to finish us off with that grenade in the cave on Cyprus. They obviously still haven’t found what they’re looking for, so there’s no doubt that they’ll still be on the hunt. The only good thing, I suppose, is that they might think we’re both dead and buried in the rubble under the cave, and so they might not give us any more trouble here in Britain. But sooner or later I think we’ll come face-to-face with them again.”
“I guessed that would be what you’d think, and you’re probably right. So what’s your plan now? Have you got a plan, even?”
“I thought you knew me a bit better than that, despite our short acquaintance. Of course I haven’t got a plan. That’s not the way I work. I more kind of make things up as I go along.”
“Funnily enough, I expected that as well. So let me tell you what I think. What we have to do is try to crack whatever code is incorporated in the pattern of metalwork on those two chests. And if we can do that, then we can decide what to do next. Stay flexible. Think on our feet, that kind of thing.”
Mallory nodded again. “Exactly. Just like I said. We’ll make it up as we go along.”
“And if we can’t crack the code? Or even find it? What then?”
“I suppose we give up, because the only thing we’ve got is those photographs of the metalwork on the chests. If we can’t work out the next clue from them, that’s pretty much it. There’s nowhere else we can look, and nothing else we can do.”
Robin slowed her pace slightly and glanced sideways at Mallory.
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” she said.
“There is?” Mallory sounded puzzled.
“Yes, obviously. I mean you and me. You only got involved in this because I asked for your help in solving a riddle, to decode a piece of enciphered Latin text. You’ve got your own business to run in Cornwall, and I should really be heading back to Dartmouth to see what’s happening in the shop. Can either of us really afford the time to go off on what might turn out to be another wild-goose chase? Following another set of clues that could very easily lead us to another couple of empty chests or whatever?”
Mallory suspected that there might be more to Robin’s question than was at first apparent. He’d had enough girlfriends to know perfectly well that the female of the species would often ask one question when she was actually expecting an answer to something completely different, something that she no doubt felt was implied in what she’d just said. And he also knew that most men were too stupid or out of touch to realize this.
What he was quite certain about was that Robin Jessop’s antiquarian bookshop could probably manage quite happily without any interference from the owner. Betty, the lady who actually ran the place on a daily basis, was more than capable of doing everything herself, especially as Robin would almost always be available on her mobile phone to field any questions that Betty couldn’t answer. And as Mallory had already explained to her a couple of times, his IT consultancy work required him to be contactable by phone, and to have high-speed Internet access when necessary to sort out any problems for his clients, but not necessarily to be actually on-site.
So he listened to the question that Robin had just asked, but gave her two answers: the obvious response to the question she’d actually asked, and then the answer to what he hoped she was really asking.
“I think both of our businesses can more or less take care of themselves, Robin,” he said. “We’ve got something more important going on here. I think we need to continue the search as quickly as possible. Otherwise we might find that we’re beaten to the prize by whoever those Italians are working for. That’s the practical solution, in my opinion. And the other thing is that I think we make a pretty good team, so the last thing I want to do is walk away from you now, irrespective of what the next chapter of this peculiar quest might bring. I want to know more about you, and to spend a lot more time with you. So if you’re okay with that, then I’ll be here, standing right beside you, until the bitter end.”
“So you think we’re heading for disaster, do you? Why did you say the ‘bitter end’? There might be a happy ending to all this lot. You never know.”
Her voice was light, almost flirtatious, but Mallory sensed the emotion behind the words.
He stopped in the middle of the pavement, put his hand on Robin’s shoulder to turn her to face him, and then kissed her, long and hard, on the lips.
For a couple of seconds, Robin didn’t respond; then her arms snaked around Mallory’s shoulders and the back of his head and she pulled him firmly into a close embrace. Then she released him and took a half step back.
“Thank you,” she said, a smile dimpling her cheeks. “I needed that.”
“I think we both needed it,” Mallory said. “Seriously, I’m here for you for as long as you want me.”
As they continued walking down the street, Robin’s hand sought out Mallory’s, and he responded with a firm squeeze of her palm.
A few minutes later, Mallory opened the passenger door of his Porsche for Robin, then walked around to the driver’s seat and started the engine. He waited for a couple of minutes until the oil temperature began to rise, then engaged first gear and steered the Cayman out of the car park.
* * *
Gary Marsh, their faithful but unseen shadow, stepped out from behind a parked van as the car drove away, the throaty exhaust note of the Porsche hinting at the power of the engine. There was no way that he could follow them, obviously. He had a car, but it was tucked away in a corner of a car park the better part of two miles distant, and his briefing had been to observe the woman and follow her on foot.
His mobile phone was in his hand, and on the screen was a very clear image of the rear three-quarters of the Porsche, showing the number plate with pinpoint clarity. He made a mental note of the letters and numbers, then dialed his contact’s mobile number from memory. The phone was answered almost immediately.
“Yes?”
“They’ve just driven away in a Porsche Cayman,” he began, “and I’m not mobile, so there’s nothing else I can do right now. Do you want the plate number? You can probably track it through the traffic camera system.”
The man he’d ca
lled didn’t reply for a few moments, and when he did his tone was distinctly frosty. “How do you think I can do that?”
“I’m not stupid,” Marsh said. “I’ve spent a lot of my working life analyzing data and making connections, and working out that you’re a copper wasn’t what you might call difficult. The only way you could have known when the female target was going to leave the station was if you were in there at the same time.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m a policeman,” the man responded. “I could be a civilian support worker.”
“And I could be Elvis Presley. Civilian support workers don’t have access to surveillance footage taken in interview rooms, and two of the pictures you sent me were definitely taken from a video of an interrogation. So you’re a copper, and probably hold a fairly senior rank. The kind of rank that can instruct somebody to prepare still images from an interview video without anybody being able to ask any awkward questions. Now you listen to me. I don’t care who you are or what you are or even what you want, but it makes things a hell of a lot easier to sort out if you’re straight with me, because I’ll always be straight with you. That’s how I work. Deal?”
There was another short silence, and then Marsh heard a long sigh before the man replied, “Deal. Give me the registration details.”
Marsh relayed the information, then asked the obvious question. “So, what do you want me to do now? I can do moving target surveillance, obviously, but I need a definite starting point. A home address or some other confirmed location. And do you want me to continue following the woman, or do you want both of them to be tracked? I have a colleague who can work with me if they split up. But I think they’re an item.”
“What do you mean?”
Marsh explained what he’d seen on the street after the two people had walked away from the coffee shop, and some parts of the conversation that he had overheard. In fact, he hadn’t just overheard it: he’d also recorded much of it. In one of the inside pockets of his jacket was a small digital recorder, and running down his right sleeve was a thin cable that terminated in a miniaturized directional microphone, the mike fitted with a simple slider switch that would turn the recorder on and off as required. It was a much more discreet piece of equipment than other directional recorders, and although most people might look slightly askance at someone pointing their hand directly at them, Marsh had found that simply carrying a newspaper in his right hand, with his arm bent at the elbow, looked entirely natural and worked very well, allowing him to point the microphone unobtrusively at his desired target. It was another very valuable part of his surveillance armory.
“Do you know the identity of the man she was with?” he asked.
“It was almost certainly a guy called David Mallory. He’s also in the frame for this investigation, but we’ve had to let them both walk because we don’t have enough evidence to hold them or charge them. We still think that the woman is the prime suspect, or at least the more important half of the couple. But I’ll send you pictures of Mallory as well, just in case she was with somebody else that we don’t know about.”
“You don’t need to bother,” Marsh replied. “I’ve got half a dozen shots of him, in the street and in the car. I’ll pick the best two or three and send them to your mobile as soon as we finish this call. You can ident him for me.”
“Thanks. That’ll speed things up. Right, I’ll get back to you with new instructions once we’ve located either the suspects or that car. Can you be prepared to go mobile at very short notice?”
“Of course. I’ll grab a taxi and go to pick up my vehicle. I’ll be ready within a maximum of thirty minutes.”
7
Dartmouth, Devon
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Robin asked. “That Porsche is powerful enough to get us away from any trouble we might meet.”
“I agree,” Mallory replied. “But unfortunately it’s also distinctive enough to get us into trouble in the first place. It’s a very difficult car to hide, and for the moment I think anonymity is a lot more important than speed.”
A few minutes later, Mallory reversed the Cayman into the single parking place at the back of Robin’s antiquarian bookshop. She had started her Golf and parked it a few yards away down the street to allow him to occupy the space. Mallory transferred their bags to the smaller vehicle, locked the Porsche, and walked over to the Volkswagen, carrying a small black bag in his hand.
“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Robin asked, pointing at it.
“I hope not, but having a loaded pistol with us still seems to me like a good idea, until we find out what’s happening with those bloody Italian thugs.”
“Are you sure we couldn’t stay in my apartment?” Robin asked, pointing at the level above the bookshop. “We are here now, after all.”
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea, just in case we are being watched. We should try to be as unpredictable as possible and just pick a hotel somewhere at random. I prefer the idea of staying somewhere where there’s more than one way in and out.”
“That’s okay with me, if that’s what you want.”
As Mallory approached her, Robin walked around the car to the passenger door and opened it.
“You drive,” she said. “I’m going to look at the pictures on my laptop again, just in case anything leaps out at me.”
“That’s fine with me,” Mallory said, buckling his seat belt and starting the Golf. “Any preference where you’d like to stay?”
“No, not really, but I think I’d prefer country rather than town. Just surprise me. You’ve done that once today already.”
Mallory smiled at the memory but didn’t respond.
Beside him, Robin opened her laptop and pressed the space bar to wake it up. She had a copy of the photographs they’d taken in the cave on Cyprus on the computer as well as her tablet, and hoped that the laptop, with its larger screen, would make it easier to identify the code or pattern that they believed had to be concealed within the ornate metalwork that covered the lids of the two medieval chests. Assuming it was there, of course.
They had both taken a number of pictures of the chests with their mobile phones in the indifferent lighting of the cave, some using the flash and some without, and despite these unfavorable conditions the quality of the pictures was actually quite good. Certainly she could see a considerable amount of detail, even down to the tiny patterns, little more than groups of etched lines, that decorated almost all of the complex pattern of metal that encased the old wood.
She began by looking at the overall pattern on the photograph of one of the chests, tracing the intricately curved lines of metal with her eyes as she tried to identify any kind of symbol or shape that might be significant. Then she switched her attention to a photograph of the second chest and did the same thing before reducing the size of the two images, loading them onto the screen at the same time, and studying them as a pair rather than as individual objects.
“Any luck?” Mallory asked as he steered the car out of Dartmouth and pointed them in a generally westerly direction, mainly because there weren’t any roads going north, which was the direction he actually wanted to go.
“Not really,” Robin replied. “All I can tell you is pretty much the same as we already knew. Which is, basically, that the lids of these two chests are covered in a pattern of metalwork that is almost certainly too elaborate to simply be decoration, especially bearing in mind the circumstances in which they were buried. And, as we saw when we uncovered them in the first place, the patterns are different, which again suggests that there’s some kind of hidden message in the scrollwork.”
“What about the etchings and marks on the metal itself? Could there be a clue hidden in those tiny marks?”
“I’d feel a whole lot better if we had the actual chests in front of us and could examine them properly,” Robin replied, “because it’s always possi
ble that there’s something the cameras didn’t pick up. But, as far as I can tell from studying the pictures, those small marks are really just decorative. There are a few places where some of the marks do seem to form letters, but I really can’t be sure that I’m not seeing something that actually isn’t there. I mean, I’m looking at three straight lines, say, and if I apply a bit of poetic license I can almost make them form the shape of a letter N, and I can turn two lines into a V or four lines into a W. But if you looked you probably wouldn’t see the same association at all. I think I’m just seeing letters because that’s what I’m hoping to see, and the bottom line is that even if I am right and on one of the curved bits of metal there is a letter N, for example, that doesn’t really help us because it’s just one letter by itself. We’re looking for a phrase or at least two or three words, not individual letters.”
Mallory was silent for a few moments, mulling over what Robin just told him. What she said hadn’t come as a surprise. Although they hadn’t discussed it in detail, they had already come to more or less the same conclusion.
“What about the differences between the two patterns?” he asked. “We already knew the metalwork wasn’t the same on the two lids, but what actually is the difference? Are the two patterns completely dissimilar, or are we looking at just fairly minor changes from one to the other?”
Robin glanced down at the computer resting on her lap before she replied. She studied the two images on the screen, the side-by-side photographs of the lids of the two chests, and then shook her head.