by John Creasey
He couldn’t do it.
Nothing would ever make him do it.
Not even sight of Linda alive.
Could they let him see her? Here on this dark hillside? It made no sense, nothing made any sense to him.
As that thought came the movement was repeated behind him and a man gripped his bound hands and thrust him forward. He heard the first man moving through the undergrowth and suddenly saw a light – a pale light – as from a lamp. The nearer he got the brighter the light seemed. It was in one of the little, shallow caves that abounded in Hazebury Ring and in all the countryside about here. Children often came and played by day; the more daring came by night. He was pushed close; a hand at his neck thrust his head down and the second man said in a high-pitched voice: “Get in!”
He stumbled to his knees and then edged himself forward over dirt and stones until he saw her, stretched out at the back of the cave.
He saw her.
She was alive.
She wore only her slip and stockings, nothing else; just slip and stockings. Her face was turned toward him. She was gagged so that she couldn’t speak, but her eyes spoke for her. She was in terror. Terror. She lay on the uneven ground of the cave and the light fell on her forehead and her great eyes, which pleaded for her.
The man spoke from behind Batten.
“You do what I tell you or we’ll just have a little fun and then kill her. All we have to do is fill that hole in. No one will ever find her in a thousand years.”
Please, please, please, her eyes seemed to say.
And he loved her.
She had often waited for him like this, touched with a kind of shyness which vanished the moment he was beside her. Linda. There she was, and she was terrified. He did not doubt that the man would carry out his threat. One thing was certain: he had to promise to do what they wanted; he had to leave her here at least with hope.
He said: “I’ll—I’ll do it.”
The words seemed to echo: I’ll do-do-do it.
And her eyes seemed to blaze: Thank you, my love, thank you, my darling.
Then the men behind pulled him away.
Linda Prell lay watching him.
From the moment she had been kidnapped she had alternated between quivering fear and stoic resignation. She had been in a stupor of drugged sleep most of the time, but occasionally she had woken, to solitude; had been visited by the youth, and then given a little food, soup and biscuits and water, allowed to relieve herself, and then tied up and drugged again.
She knew that one of the places where she had come round had been a small caravan, pulled by a car which made little noise.
There had been an old shed, stinking of rotten meat and paint.
And there had been this cave.
They had brought her up here after dark, not talking to her but talking to each other. Only now and again did she catch a full sentence but gradually a picture formed in her mind. They wanted Tom to help them steal something from the cathedral. Something. What sacred relic could they want? What could be of such value as to make all this worthwhile?
Then the older man had said: “That bloody charter,” and she knew.
At first, she had been shocked beyond feeling. Until then she had hated the thought of Tom conniving at a theft under any kind of pressure, for she knew that it would sear him for the rest of his days. But the great treasure: Magna Carta! As a girl at one of the schools nearby she had been brought to see it; at the school she had been taught to reverence it because of its significance as well as its age. To her it was less Magna Carta, the démarche of the barons, but more like a bone of the hand of Christ or part of the wood from the cross he had carried. It was not part of ordinary life: it was sacred.
Nothing must make him agree to do this thing: nothing!
And there he was, with that face she had come to like and love, the little piggy of a face, saying in a voice she could hardly hear, it was so hoarse: “I’ll do it.”
“No!” she wanted to scream. “No, no, no! Let them kill me, let them do anything with me, but don’t help them. Don’t help them!” She tried to make him understand by the way she looked at him: “No, no, no!”
Yet it seemed to him that she was saying: “Thank you, my love, thank you, my darling.”
Roger watched the mechanical digger turn up another yard of chalky earth; watched men going through the fresh pile with forks and trowels; saw the crowd which was getting bigger and bigger. Every now and again something was found; once, a diamond ring worth several hundred pounds. A pair of dentures wired together; several keys, old silver cups – anything which might be picked up by the dustmen. Calls came over the walkie-talkie, none of them important.
It was approaching midnight and getting chilly, and the crowd was beginning to disperse when a call came for Roger. As he went toward the car a woman from a canteen called: “Like tea or coffee, sir?”
“Tea, please.” Roger took a proffered cup.
“Can you spare a poor newspaperman a cup of coffee, too?” Childs asked.
“Poor newspaperman, be blowed,” the woman retorted. “I’d wrap all you chaps round fish and chips if I had my way. Sugar?”
“Please,” Childs said humbly, and his photographer, taking a cup, said: “No sugar, ta.”
Roger reached the car on which the message was being relayed, got inside, balanced the tea on top of the dashboard, and said: “West speaking.”
“Hullo, Mr. West.” It was Isherwood in his most formal voice, which suggested that he had someone with him. “I thought you ought to hear of this right away. Tom Batten is missing.”
Roger actually gasped: “What?”
“I’m afraid it’s true,” said Isherwood. “His wife telephoned us five minutes ago. He said he was going home early, but he hasn’t been there. We tried his – I mean Linda Prell’s sister – and she said he’d been in; he has a key. But he’d gone before eleven o’clock, when they got back. They’d been out to the girl’s parents to try to reassure them. He’d made himself some coffee, and hadn’t been gone for long, because the saucepan he’d boiled some milk in was still warm.”
“Anything else?” demanded Roger.
“Not yet,” said Isherwood. “But I’ve got half a dozen men out in the Bodenham area. They’re going to knock on doors to find out if he’s been seen. He might have other friends there. And the pubs were closing when he left – someone in any of the nearby villages might have seen him.”
“Can you put every available man on this?” asked Roger.
“Half a mo’,” Isherwood said, and his voice sounded fainter: he was talking either to someone else in the office or on another telephone. He was soon back talking to Roger. “Yes, I’ll send round for all who are off duty. You’d recommend checking all the local villages, wouldn’t you?”
Roger said: “Jack, what about that thing we were talking about?”
“I haven’t forgotten it,” Isherwood said. “Why?”
“The cathedral ought to be very carefully watched,” Roger said.
“I hadn’t reckoned on there being an attempt so soon.” Isherwood’s tone was almost one of complaint. “But—oh, you’re right, of course. Would you station the men close or—” He broke off, saying: “Just a moment, please.” His north-country accent was very noticeable tonight, as if he usually made an effort to control it. There was a mumble of voices before his came loud again: “You’d have them kept at a distance, wouldn’t you?”
“At places from which they can move quickly if they see anything suspicious,” Roger answered. “A few men near Newall Lodge might be a good idea, too.”
“I can’t make men!” Isherwood exploded.
“Is the Western Federation chief constable with you?”
“Yes,” answered Isherwood.
“Then ask him if he’ll
borrow some men from Hampshire, Southampton and Bournemouth if needs be,” Roger said crisply.
“I will put it to him,” Isherwood promised. “How long will you be, sir?”
“Less than an hour,” answered Roger. “Will you keep me posted as I come?”
“Yes, of course.” Isherwood rang off, and Roger put the receiver down slowly and picked up his tea. It was nearly cold. He got out as Bull came up, with Childs and his photographer as close as a shadow. “There’s a new development at Salisbury,” he said. “I’m going straight back. May I take Kempton?”
“Of course,” Bull said. “Significant?”
Childs was not now the only newspaperman in sight; others had crowded around and four cameras were poised. Yet Bull should be told, and there seemed no reason for secrecy, so Roger stated clearly: “Tom Batten is missing.”
“Batten,” Childs echoed, and the name seemed to move from lip to lip as the newspapermen crowded round. “Batten—Batten—Batten. How? When? How long ago? When was he last seen? Is he being searched for? How do you know? From where?” The questions flooded in, all to the point even if some were repetitive. “Anything found here? The girl, I mean? Arms? Legs? Trinkets?”
At last, Roger was pointing the car toward the open road, with several press cars strung out behind him and Kempton sitting stolidly by his side, as if telling himself that Roger must have had all the questions he could take for a long time, and he, Kempton, would be the soul of patience.
Roger put his foot down hard and the needle hovered between eighty and ninety.
“Batten’s in a bad way,” he said at last.
“Afraid he might kill himself?” asked Kempton.
“It’s not inconceivable, but—” Roger broke off, and asked: “Any idea what all this is about, Alan?”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that,” Kempton answered.
“How far would you go?” demanded Roger.
“Well,” said Kempton, “if I started with Salisbury and some funny business in fine art, heard that a top American contact man for secret buyers was involved, discovered that whoever was behind it was offering big money, and using someone prepared to abduct a police officer – well, I’d add all that up to something very big. Such as—” He paused and now the tone in his voice was defiant but dogged: “I’d guess Magna Carta.” Then in a sighing voice, he added: “It can’t be, can it?”
“It might be,” Roger said. “You’ve added most of the things up in the same way that I would.”
“But who the devil would—oh, well, if you think it’s on the cards it probably is,” Kempton said. “I’ve shied away from the idea.” He was thoughtful for some seconds, and then asked: “Any idea who it is?”
“Only guesses,” Roger told him. “Now I’m going to concentrate on driving.”
Police were sent over the county borders and from the two County Borough forces, and slowly and carefully a cordon was placed around Salisbury Cathedral. Another, smaller one, cordoned off Bodenham village. Roger was told of progress as he drove, the loudspeaker distorted in the on-rushing car.
“North and east cathedral now covered both inside and outside the walls.”
“South side covered from inside only.”
“Main gate and two supplementary gates already locked. Now under close surveillance.”
“No sign of intruders.”
“South side now covered from outside and west wall both inside and outside.”
“Roofs of buildings in the close now being used for surveillance.”
“Bodenham village now completely closed off.”
These messages came one upon the other but there was no report of anyone inside or outside even when Roger reached the city limits, a little before one-fifteen. Now three possibilities haunted him. First, that he was wrong and no raid was planned. Second, that the raid had already taken place. Third, that the raiders might already be in the cathedral and hampered in their getaway.
What would happen if they were?
Would they damage Magna Carta out of malice? Would they even threaten to damage or destroy it if they were not allowed to go free?
He was going through an agonising appraisal of the facts when a call came through from Bath to say that Stephenson had left, by himself, and was driving toward Salisbury.
“Let him come,” Roger decided, and hoped it wasn’t a wrong decision. Was Stephenson planning to be in at the kill, after all? And were the other three inside the cathedral or not?
They were already in the library – Tom Batten and Ledbetter and Ledbetter’s young mate, the specialist in electronics, whose name was Bryce.
They had not yet found how to get the copy of Magna Carta away.
They did not know that they were surrounded.
17
The Theft
To Batten, normally, it was the most beautiful sight in the world.
The stars were very bright and the light from the lamps in the city and in the close and at the house surrounding it shone upon the huge grey edifice and seemed to make it translucent; as if the grey of centuries had been lifted off and the original white stone, cut out of quarries only twelve miles away, restored on every wall. It was as if the night breathed life into the stone.
The outline of houses, some as old, some older than the cathedral, made an uneven line against the sky. The trees, some old and tall, some little more than saplings, were still like the trees at Hazebury Ring. One huge cedar stood like a clutch of dragons, each pointed limb a fang.
Batten had come here as a choir boy; he had come here as a worshiper; he had been a member of the Guardians of the Cathedral since he had joined the police force. This was part of him as it was part of England.
It was so still and quiet. Sounds from beyond the walls were muted. Except for the rustling made by the men there was no sound at all.
It was as if the cathedral and the close around it and all the people who lived nearby were sleeping.
Now Ledbetter was on one side of him and Bryce on the other, making faint sounds as they walked from St. Anne’s Gate, which was always the last to be locked.
No one else moved, not even lovers, who had long since left the sanctuary of walls and shadows.
Ledbetter’s car was parked on the main road near the gate, where it was legal to park even at night. They had left Linda alone in her dread, and a mind picture of her face seemed to show on the spire. Batten could almost hear her breathing, see the pleading in her eyes.
Ledbetter whispered: “You know what to do?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t make any mistake,” Ledbetter warned.
Batten didn’t answer.
“He’d better not,” Bryce said. “Or that bitch will be broken into pieces.”
“For God’s sake—” Batten began.
“Shut up!”
They reached the porch of the north entrance and stood still, looking at the walls which surrounded the lawns, but saw only empty parked cars. No heads, no faces.
“No one’s watching,” Ledbetter said. “We’ve fooled them.”
“They’d better not watch,” Bryce said in his newer, savage voice. “Batten – do you know what will happen if West or anyone else tries to stop us?”
“I know.”
“I’ve ten little fire bombs and they can all be triggered off by the detonator switch in my hands. Electronics, see. I left one back with the woman.” He slid his hand into Batten’s pocket and went on: “Now you’ve got one close to your belly. Open the door.”
Batten could remember the youth fiddling with electric batteries, but had no idea what he had been doing; it must have been this. If it were true, if he could start fire by remote control, how could he be stopped?
It was very dark inside the porch. Batten normally had a t
orch, but now had to grope for the keyhole; at last he found it. The door creaked. Ledbetter, carrying a lightweight fireproof container in which to place the document, banged against the stone walls; the metal clanged.
“Quiet!” breathed Bryce.
Even Ledbetter muttered: “Sorry.”
They crept inside, and stood in the eerie stillness; and the chill which struck from walls and pillars, floor and stained glass seemed to penetrate their bodies. Gradually the windows began to glow with weird light; and Ledbetter shone a torch. The beam of a torch crept around. Nothing moved and Ledbetter whispered: “Which way?”
“We go straight toward the nave,” Batten said.
“Where’s that old clock?” demanded Bryce. “The oldest in the world, don’t they call it?”
“Yes, it—it’s up there.” Batten pointed to the right.
“Wait here,” Bryce ordered, and now Ledbetter seemed prepared to let him have his way. He made little sound as he walked toward the cage-like structure which contained the clock, and bent down; in a few moments he was back. “If anything goes wrong,” he said, “some other clock will be the eldest. That one won’t be there any longer.”
Batten winced.
“Go on,” Ledbetter ordered.
“I want to stick another of these little playthings up by the choir stalls,” Bryce said. “It’s easy as kiss your hand. One dab of Sticktite and it’ll stay forever. Unless I use my remote-control gadget. One squawk on the right wavelength, and ups-a-daisy!”
“You don’t need—” Batten couldn’t finish, it hurt him so much to speak.
“I know what we need,” interrupted Bryce. “This is what I’m here for.” He was obviously able to see more clearly now and turned into the nave. His footsteps echoed faintly as he went toward the altar, and the beam of his torch fell on the carved figures of saints and patriarchs about the pulpit.
Soon the light fell on the wooden angels of the choir stalls, the coats of arms behind them.
Bryce made a scraping sound. There was a noise from outside; an airplane, high up. Bryce kicked against something and muttered an imprecation. Any sound was a blasphemy here and at this moment.