“My friends, my very good friends, please forgive me for not having been here upon your return, but I have indeed been busy on our behalf, and my news will, I'm sure, be a pleasant surprise to you all.”
Joe Cutler thought that almost everything to do with this quite remarkable man was surprising. From his fortuitous arrival the night before to his overall persona, this man was truly unlike anyone Joe had met before. Far from being the archetypal stuffy university type Joe would have imagined, Lucius Doberman exuded confidence, and that confidence seemed to rub off on those around him. His looks, his manner his speech all gave him a larger than life personality that helped Joe realise that this was indeed a man who would be an asset, a true friend to those he chose to bestow his own care upon.
“Come and sit down, Lucius, and tell us all about it,” said Joe, rising from his chair long enough to shake Doberman's outstretched hand. “Claire, a large whisky for the professor, please,” he called to the landlady's daughter who nodded, smiled, and rushed across with a drink for Doberman. Winston pulled a chair for him and sat down, stretching his long legs out in front of him, underneath the table.
“Forgive me,” Doberman said breathlessly, “I rushed back as quickly as I could. I knew you'd all wonder where I'd disappeared to and I didn't want to keep you in suspense too long. I don't think I've ever driven as fast as I have to get back to Glastonbury tonight.”
“Back from where, Lucius? What on earth have you been up to all day?” asked Sally.
“Ah, Sally, the impetuousness of youth as always, eh? A moment please, whilst I sample this excellent example of the produce of our Scottish cousins.”
Lucius downed the large scotch in one gulp and signalled to Claire to bring him another. She arrived with his drink in seconds and he ordered a refill for his companions before continuing.
As he settled down with his whisky clutched like a theatrical prop in one hand, Lucius began to relate the story of his first full day in Glastonbury.
“Now then, where was I?” he began. “Ah, yes, I suppose I should start with this morning. When I'd seen you off to work, which you must tell me about soon I might add, I went to the library. I was able to obtain the use of one of their computers where I conversed via email with Marcus and a couple of other friends who I thought might be able to help me with my research into your very strange case.
I'd decided, you see, to apply a spot of lateral thinking to what seems to a most perplexing little problem. You know that you're searching for something, but you don't know what. The man you're working for does know, but is unlikely to tell you, and he also has a spy on-site to keep him apprised of your progress. For some reason, he has produced a bogus document to mislead you into believing his silly story about Excalibur, and whether for reasons of showmanship or some other stupidity, he has incorporated an unwitting clue into said document by mentioning the name Livara. Now, as we know, the Livara was a ship, not a place, so the logical conclusion must be that your Mr. Capshaw knows that and therefore the search upon which you are engaged has something to do with that ship, do you all agree?”
Three heads nodded and the professor went on.
“So, why include the name of the ship in his fake document? He knows of course that you are highly unlikely to find any connection between the ship and your visit to Glastonbury, for the reason I outlined, so his ego allowed him to put the name quite clearly before you. Of course, he felt quite safe in doing so, as, if Sally had not telephoned me, and I hadn't spoken to Marcus, and then come here to inform you of my findings, you would not have discovered the link. After all, if his deception had succeeded why on earth should you?”
“Professor, I mean, Lucius,” Winston butted in. “You're beginning to lose me, man.”
“I'm sorry, Winston, please, bear with me. Going back to this morning, I thought that my search should take a completely different direction to yours, so I decided to concentrate on the ship.”
“But she sank over sixty years ago,” said Winston.
“Ah yes, but, and it is a very big but,” Doberman went on, “What if she didn't sink, or what if she didn't sail empty as the original manifest claimed, why did she carry double the normal crew compliment and who were the additional men who went down with her if she did indeed sink?”
“Bloody hell, Lucius. When you say lateral thinking, you damned well mean it, don't you?” Joe asked, breaking his silence at last. He was enthralled by the professor's words and wanted to hear the rest of what Lucius had to say.
“Thank you, Joe,” Lucius said gracefully, and then continued with his report on his day. “You see, I realised that as the ship was lost with all hands, and officially there were no survivors, and the original owner must have died years ago, then my search could only begin in one place.”
“Like I said, you've lost me, man” said Winston.
“The word Livara was invented by the ship's owner to honour his children. If I couldn't find Harry Blandford, then perhaps there was still a chance that Linda, Valerie or Raymond might still be alive, or maybe they had children?”
“Of course,” said Joe, as realisation dawned on him, “you went looking for the children, the only ones who might have known something about the truth surrounding their father's ship?”
“Exactly, dear boy,” Lucius said triumphantly. “I received a reply to one of my e-mails quite quickly. I have a friend who works for the Admiralty and he was happy to provide me with the information I requested, me being a historian and all. Anyway, Paul, that's his name, Paul Davies, he told me that there's a bit of conflicting information surrounding the SS Livara. He had no trouble finding the initial report of the sinking and of the rest of the detail surrounding the convoy she sailed in, but that the numbers didn't add up, as he put it. He promised to investigate further and get back to me, which he did an hour later. As we already know, the Livara was carrying a larger than normal crew, and according to the usual maritime practice of the time the crew's wages would have stopped at the precise moment of the sinking. Even though all hands were lost, the records show that the only names listed were those of the ship's original crew. There's no mention of the additional souls who were listed as having gone down with the ship, so who, I asked Paul, could they be? In the hour he'd kept me waiting he unearthed something very interesting. You might remember that I told you a destroyer was also sunk on the same night as the Livara. Well, H.M.S. Firefly appears to have been listed as carrying a crew of 280.
In the official records it appears that someone had got their sums wrong. There were 68 survivors from the Firefly, which should have meant that 212 crew members were lost. The official record, however, states that 234 souls were lost, an increase of twenty two on what it should have been. The Royal Navy's records were, of course, separate from those of the Merchant Marine, so it's unlikely that anyone at the time would have made the connection that Paul and I made today, though no-one in 1940 would have had reason to be suspicious of casualty figures when so many lives were being lost at sea on a daily basis.”
Cutler and the others were still enthralled by the professor's words, though none of them were quite sure where his story was heading. After pausing for breath and taking another sip of his drink Doberman continued.
“Don't you see?” he asked, and went on. “The twenty two additional lives listed as lost when the Firefly went down matches the twenty two extra crew members supposedly on board the Livara, assuming her to be carrying her normal crew compliment of sixteen, which tallies with the named casualty figures by the way. For some reason, rather than list them as being lost on board the Livara, the Royal Navy placed them on board the Firefly, which to Paul and I could only mean one thing. The extra personnel on the Livara were Royal Naval personnel, not merchant marine, and they could only have been assigned to the freighter if she were involved in some operation of importance, under the auspices of the military, and perhaps carrying a cargo of value to the nation.”
At last Cutler found his voice again
, long enough to ask, “You're leading up to something, Lucius, I know you are. Come on, out with it, you've teased us long enough.”
“Patience, dear boy, patience. I beg you. Now, it's evident that someone somewhere made an administrative error all those years ago, otherwise, we wouldn't be having this discussion now. Wires got crossed somewhere between the military and civilian authorities and they left us this tantalising clue, though what it leads to we're still in the dark about. Now, this is where things got really interesting. My second contact this morning was with Margery Forbes, who is a leading genealogist. I simply asked her to trace the progeny of Harry Blandford, the owner of the SS Livara and it didn't take her long to reply to my inquiry. Tragedy made the job easy you see. You'll recall that Blandford named his ship after his children Linda, Valerie and Raymond. Well, Raymond was killed in 1944 serving with the Fleet Air Arm as a naval pilot. His aircraft was shot down while attacking a Japanese battle squadron in the Pacific. Valerie was killed when a V1, the German's flying bomb, scored a direct hit on the house she shared with her husband in London in 1945. They had no children, so that left only Linda, who did survive the war, married and had one daughter, Doris, born in 1949. Doris died of cancer in 1980, but her own daughter Angela, who was born in 1976 is still alive and well and living in mild luxury in a quite beautiful country house in Wiltshire, which of course is not exactly another world in distance from where we now sit.”
“You've been to see her?” Sally exclaimed.
“That's where I went haring off to this morning, of course,” said Lucius, “and a very warm welcome I received I can tell you. Angela Trent, that's her married name of course, was delighted to meet someone who was so eager to talk about her grandfather, who it seems is something of a hero figure to Angela.”
“You clever old professor,” said Winston, beginning to comprehend exactly how hard Lucius had worked on their behalf during just one day in Glastonbury.
“Thank you, Winston,” said Lucius, before going on with his tale.
“She was happy to discuss many things about old Harry Blandford, but most of it was purely family stuff, and not of great interest to my investigation. I was polite and didn't interrupt, of course, thinking that if she did have anything significant to divulge it would come out in the natural course of her story. Eventually, she told me something that made my ears prick up, figuratively speaking. Harry Blandford was a retired sea captain as we know, but when he first started his shipping company, he needed capital in order to make his first ship The Blandford Star fully seaworthy. It seems that old Harry lived in a part of London also inhabited by a man whose name we've come across already, a man who was known to the local population of the time as a source of money for those requiring loans, what today I believe we would refer to as a loan shark. Harry Blandford went to and received a sizeable loan from that man, and was able to get his ship operational, and his small success story grew from there. He soon acquired a second ship the Livara, and as far as Angela is aware, Harry was able to repay the loan to his financial benefactor before the outbreak of war. Now, can anyone guess the name of the man who loaned Harry Blandford his start-up cash?”
“Bloody hell, Lucius!” Joe Cutler exclaimed loudly, “He borrowed the money from old Sam Maitland, didn't he?”
“You've got it in one, old chap” Lucius replied. “Now all we have to do is figure out what Maitland had to do with the Livara's last voyage and we may be close to unravelling this strange tangled web that you've got yourselves caught up in. Now, my friends, I know there is still much to discuss and you must have many questions, but I implore you, as a man who has worked extremely hard all day, as I'm sure you have as well, can we eat now please?”
The others reluctantly agreed. They wanted Lucius to go on with his revelation, but he assured them that there was nothing else of great importance to relate, and what there was could wait until after dinner. Dinner itself was a thoughtful affair, the conversation quite muted as Cutler and the others allowed the news that Lucius had brought them to sink in. Once or twice questions were asked, but Lucius deflected them, saying that he would rather talk after dinner. He was famished, and he soon devoured his meal of steak and kidney pie with mashed potatoes and a medley of green vegetables.
As they returned to the bar Joe and the others couldn't wait to take up where they'd left off before Lucius's stomach had taken command of the evening.
Chapter 31
“What the hell d'you mean, `they're on to us?' ” Capshaw screamed down the telephone. Such was the volume of his anger and the venom with which he delivered his tirade that Graves held the receiver of his own phone a good two inches from his ear, and still the voice of his employer seemed to reverberate in every cell of his brain. “Speak you bloody fool. Tell me I wasn't a total numbskull to hire you to keep an eye on the `sharp end' of the job.”
As Capshaw's vociferous harangue came to a close Graves tried to explain the situation to the millionaire businessman in simple terms.
“When I say `on to us' I mean that they know they're not searching for Excalibur. Having said that they don't know exactly what we're looking for. I planted a bug in their van because I suspected that they were thinking along those lines, and their conversation after today's search proved me correct. It might have helped if you hadn't told Santorini to place the name Livara in the document. That's what led them to become suspicious and I've been working my rocks off trying to keep them believing in the whole ruddy story. What on earth made you do that any way?”
“That's got nothing to do with you, Graves, just remember that. If I chose to put the name of the fucking ship in there, then it's no business of yours or anyone else's.”
Despite his anger and chiding of Graves, Capshaw knew that he'd made an error, allowing his own pompous vanity to let him include the name of the Livara in his bogus document. What had possessed him to do it? Of course he thought that no-one involved in the operation would ever question the so-called Chronicle of Gareth and he'd allowed himself the luxury of a little private joke on Cutler and his team. He hoped now that his decision wasn't about to rear up and bite him where it would hurt, in his wallet. Added to that was the reaction of the Maitland brothers if they were to find out that his stupidity had put the search in jeopardy. Now that was a thought that didn't bear consideration. He returned to his conversation with Graves.
“I think the time has come to get a little `forceful' with Mr. Cutler and his people, Graves. I'm sure you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Graves replied then added: “But there is something else, what you might call an added complication.”
“Dear God, Graves, don't tell me you've fucked up somewhere else in all this. What sort of added complication?”
Graves went on to relate the strange appearance on the scene of the two characters he knew only as Lucius and Marcus. By the time he'd finished Capshaw's fury had grown once again, and was now on a par with an Atlantic gale blowing from the coldest reaches of the Arctic.
“Find out who they are, and what they've got to do with anything,” he yelled down the phone at Graves. “I don't care what you have to do to achieve success with this job, Graves, just bloody well get on with it, and don't, I repeat, don't leave any loose ends, even if that includes these bloody strangers who're poking their noses in where it doesn't concern them. Do I make myself clear?”
“Abundantly clear, sir,” Graves replied as respectfully as he could in an attempt to assuage Capshaw's anger. “Leave it to me, I have a plan.”
“I just hope it's better than the one you've been adhering to so far, that's all I can say. I'm sure I don't have to tell you what's at stake, or the price of failure.”
The implied threat wasn't lost on Walter Graves, who well knew the reputation of the Maitland's and their connection with the search. He might be good, and he might have wriggled clear of some tricky situations in the past, but taking on the entire criminal fraternity of East London had never be
en in Graves's plans.
“I've told you, it's all under control. Cutler will do anything I want him to by the time I've finished with him, as will that Jamaican sidekick of his.”
“And the girl, Corbett? Will she do what we want as well, Mr. Graves?”
“Oh yes, sir,” Graves replied with a hint of real menace in his voice. “Little Miss Corbett will not only do as I say, but she's the key to my plan. Thanks to her, Cutler and Fortune will be falling over themselves to do as I ask.”
“Ha, I think I get your drift, Graves. I don't want to know the details, just let me know when your plan bears fruit, and I'm warning you, it had better do just that.”
Capshaw hung up on the historian, as he had a penchant for doing to people when he considered a conversation over and done with. Graves breathed a sigh of relief. Capshaw had really shaken him, and that wasn't an easy thing to do, or something that happened to Walter Graves very often. Few people had the power to instil fear in him, but Capshaw, thanks to his millions and his connections to the Maitland family was one of those who had that ability.
Now that he was left alone and in peace in his room at Meare Manor, Walter Graves began to mentally put the finishing touches to his plan to coerce Cutler and Fortune to continue the search. The plan would unfortunately involve a level of fear and discomfort for Sally Corbett, but then that was the price she would have to pay for her and her colleagues' suspicions and meddling in Graves's nicely laid plans. Graves would spend the next day doing his best to lull the Strata Survey team into a false sense of security before making his move the following day. From then onwards the ball, and therefore full control, would be firmly back in his court!
“So you see,” Lucius Doberman said to the others as they sat around their usual table in the bar, “my visit to see Angela Trent threw up the odd clue or two, and gives us a little more information to work with. Oh yes,” he suddenly announced quite theatrically, as he seemed to like to do when metaphorically pulling a rabbit out of his hat. “There was one more thing she told me which might be of some significance to us, though I'm not sure quite what bearing it has on the case.”
Glastonbury Page 17