Stones of Treason: An international thriller

by Peter Watson

  ‘Not by itself. But he’s given notice to Evelyn Allen that he wants to raise a “delicate matter” under AOB. What else could it be?’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. Damn. How much does he know, I wonder. And how the hell did he find out?’ The Prime Minister turned to Slocombe. ‘Hear that, Eric? He’s got to be stopped.’

  ‘Do we have anything on Keld?’ Slocombe looked from Lockwood to Hatfield to Midwinter. ‘Anything we could trade off against this?’

  Lockwood said nothing. Midwinter shook his head. Hatfield looked uncomfortable. ‘There’s one thing . . . I don’t know how useful it is.’

  They all looked at him.

  ‘He has an illegitimate daughter.’

  ‘What!’ said Midwinter.

  ‘Perfect,’ whispered Slocombe.

  Lockwood remained silent.

  ‘It happened a long time ago,’ said Hatfield. ‘Keld is fifty-seven now and the girl – woman – is already twenty. He’s paid the mother all these years, enough for maintenance, education and a little bit more – enough to keep her quiet. But the important thing, from our point of view, is that he was already married when she was born.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Lockwood had at last found his voice. He hated what he was hearing but he had been in politics a long time and, distasteful as it was, he was not the type to look a gift horse in the mouth.

  ‘My election agent’s son was once the lover of Keld’s illegitimate daughter. The daughter told her lover, lover told his father, my agent told me. Years ago, I might say. I’d forgotten it until a few moments ago. It had never mattered until now.’

  ‘And now it might matter very much,’ muttered Slocombe.

  ‘But illegitimacy is no longer the stigma it was,’ said Midwinter. ‘Half the country’s illegitimate, from what I read.’

  ‘Half the country isn’t trying to be Prime Minister,’ growled Slocombe. ‘Keld won’t risk it being made public. He’ll settle out of court, as it were. Out of Cabinet.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ Lockwood spoke quietly.

  ‘I’d bet money on it. My own money,’ said Slocombe with a sly grin. ‘Come on, Bill, cheer up. Don’t look so pious. We’ve been in deeper than this before. Are you losing your appetite for the game?’

  Lockwood shrugged. ‘Maybe I am. If he stands against me for leader . . . even if he doesn’t win, it will show the strength of the opposition. That could be damaging.’ He moved across the room and put the whisky bottle in the cupboard where it was stored. Speaking with his back to them, he said: ‘You’re probably right, Eric. Keld will be warned off once he finds we know about his illegitimate child. On the other hand, he may just explode and blow us all out of the water.’

  *

  Giles Wittington briefly shone his pencil torchlight on to the filing cabinet. The card on the door read: ‘Jaffe-Newman’. He pulled open the drawer as silently as he could. He was a careful, tidy, quiet man by nature, and because his job demanded it. And he was not nervous either, which was just as well tonight.

  Sir Martin Ogilvy had arranged things as best he could. Wittington had strolled into the museum like any tourist at around four-thirty this afternoon. He had been briefed as to how to find the records department which, the director had assured him, would be empty of people from five o’clock onwards. The records office had two windows which looked down on to an inner courtyard of the museum. It also had a boxroom, with no windows, where the stationery was kept. Wittington had hidden in there until it was dark because the director had said that, although the security guards did not routinely open up the records department at night, they would do so if anyone saw a figure moving about in the office after five o’clock.

  Bob Leith had given him about thirty names of people who worked at the museum and whose profile seemed relevant in the current context: like most political terrorists, they were all aged between twenty-five and forty. They had all joined the museum in the last five years. Also, everyone in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies was included.

  Moving into the records room proper, Wittington found the files, three or four at a time, and then took them back to the boxroom where, with the door closed, he could inspect the documents at his leisure and with the lights on. He’d had no luck with the first and second batches. Now it was nearly one o’clock and he was on the third batch. In front of him was the employment file of one Helen Maynard, a Keeper of Ceramics at the museum. Wittington saw immediately that her handwriting was nothing like that on the envelope Riley had found in Basle which had been couriered to Downing Street that very day. The next file was marked ‘Errol Merton’, a metalworker in the conservation department. He had a beautiful hand, a calligrapher’s hand; but it wasn’t the one Wittington was looking for. The next two were also in the clear and it was not quite two o’clock. That made twelve names gone already. He gathered the files together, put out the light and went back into the outer office. An amber light from the courtyard outside shone into the room, casting deep shadows. As best he could, Wittington moved from one area of shadow to another. He replaced the files in their correct places and then moved on to the next drawer: ‘Opie-Sonnabend’. This drawer was in the amber light so that he didn’t need even to use his torch. Consulting the list he had been given by Leith, he saw that there were just three files in this drawer that he needed to remove: Vivian Russell-Roberts, Bernard Sackler and Eugenie Shelby. Ahh! Eugenie . . . wasn’t that a Greek name?

  Back in the inner room, he turned to that file first. The signature on Dr Shelby’s application form stared out at him. It was sometimes more difficult with handwriting, than non-experts realized, especially if there were few letters that appeared in both specimens of handwriting, or if different inks or pens had been used. He set what he had side by side:

  Eugenie Shelby Mr Nicos Zakros

  Gstaadstrasse 57,

  00662 Basle

  SWITZERLAND

  There was surprisingly little overlap. In fact, there were only the letters ’e’, ’i’, ’S’ and ’I’. The ’e’s looked similar, though in two cases they were poorly formed. The ‘l’s looked closer still but the ’i’ . . . Wittington had his doubts. The capital ’S’s weren’t much help, as one was joined to the ’h’ of Shelby and the other, in switzerland, had been printed. This was possibly the same hand, Wittington concluded, but he couldn’t be absolutely certain, and was that good enough? Bob Leith had emphasized how important this was and that the Prime Minister was taking a special interest. Perhaps he should go through the remainder of the names to be on the safe side. He was just about to dose the Shelby file and turn to Vivian Russell-Roberts, when something caught his eye. It was a typed entry high up the page, a good way from Eugenie Shelby’s signature. It was simply headed: ‘Maiden name’. That was an old-fashioned term, Wittington reflected, hardly used these days. The forms were very old. Not that it really mattered. What mattered was that, inside this box, the word that had been typed was ‘Chrysostomou’. By birth, Eugenie Shelby was Greek.

  Chapter Seventeen – Friday

  ‘I thought the site would be empty, this early in the morning.’ Victoria looked at her watch. It had just gone nine-thirty.

  ‘Germans and Dutch all get up early. And it’s cooler at this time of day. But it’s good for us. If there weren’t many people around, we would be more noticeable.’

  The site had opened at nine. Edward had thought it not clever to be first in the queue but they hadn’t been far behind. Now they were watching the entrance to the dig as best they could. Several people had gone in and no doubt others were already inside when they had arrived. But so far no one had left.

  It promised to be another baking day. The evening before, Victoria and Edward had eaten dinner at a restaurant in the main square of Olympia, and had returned to the hotel fairly early. At Corinth, Edward had been exhausted following his journey to Athens and their long drive immediately afterwards. So he had gone to sleep immediately. At Olympia they had talked for a whi
le, about Haydon mainly. Victoria had suddenly been affected by delayed shock. They had kept moving the day before, and Edward had arrived from London, and these events had put off for a while the full power of what had happened to Haydon. Victoria wasn’t frightened now, as she had been in the hotel in Athens; instead she was prone to bouts of depression which engulfed her unpredictably. They had adjoining rooms in the hotel, and shared a balcony. Edward had sat on the balcony, reading, until Victoria had finally dropped off to sleep. He noticed that she travelled with a few tiny objects from home – silver things, a treen animal. They were laid out tidily on the table by the bed. She had seemed better this morning.

  ‘How many people would be on a dig like this one?’

  Edward shielded the sun from his face with his hand. ‘Difficult to say. Fifteen, twenty . . . maybe more. In Britain there are always lots of volunteers. People love it with a passion. It’s one activity where labour is not a problem. In some ways there is too much. Throughout southern Italy, parts of Greece and Turkey, there are lots of illegal digs. There’s big money nowadays for people who find decent antiquities. Is that someone leaving?’

  Victoria looked up. She had been bitten by mosquitoes during the night and was scratching one of her bites. ‘Yes. Shall we both follow him?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

  ‘One of us could stay and follow someone else. Double our chances.’

  ‘I don’t see how. Kolettis is either here or he isn’t. If there are only fifteen to twenty people on the dig, or even if there are forty, they will all know about him. Also, it will be less suspicious if we approach people as a couple. We can pretend to be married. Come on, before we lose him.’

  The person who had left the dig was a tall, thin, dark-haired man who was walking slowly back towards the town. Victoria and Edward followed him, at a distance. ‘We can’t just accost him in the street,’ she said. ‘Let’s wait until he goes into a shop or a café. Then we can think of something.’ But the man didn’t go to a shop or a café. He went to the post office. They watched him queue for nearly fifteen minutes and saw him come away with a bundle of letters. ‘Looks like he’s got letters for several people,’ said Victoria. ‘Perhaps the archaeologists from out of town all have their mail delivered here.’

  ‘What’s he going to do now? We should have approached him in the post office.’

  But now the man did go to a café. They watched him order a coffee and water and then open one of the letters. ‘At least that tells us he’s from out of town himself,’ whispered Edward. ‘He must know who Kolettis is.’

  They sat down not too far from the man and ordered coffee of their own. ‘Leave this one to me,’ said Victoria. ‘Let’s hope he likes women.’ She got up, walked across to the man and stood over him. For a moment he didn’t see her but then he looked up. ‘Excuse me,’ she gushed. ‘Do you speak English?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I may be wrong, I know, but my husband and I’ – and she waved vaguely in Edward’s direction – ‘believe we saw you at the excavation this morning. That is true, isn’t it?’

  Again, the man nodded.

  ‘Oh, good! Then perhaps you can help us. We are old friends of Dimitri Kolettis and we heard he was on a dig somewhere near here. We were told he is working on a new book on . . .’ She faltered and looked across at Edward.

  ‘On Praxiteles,’ said the dark-haired man.

  ‘Then he is here!’ Victoria’s eyes shone.

  ‘No, he’s not. You were misled, I’m afraid. He has never been here, so far as I’m aware, and I’ve been in Olympia for the last four months.’

  ‘Somewhere nearby, then?’

  Edward registered with amazement Victoria’s ability to gush when she needed to.

  ‘No, there are no other digs near here. Not for miles. I’m sorry but Kolettis isn’t here and I don’t have the faintest notion where he is.’

  *

  Ten-forty-five in Olympia meant it was eight-forty-five in Downing Street. Lockwood faced George Keld across the breakfast table. A cold summer’s rain rattled the windows at the top of the house. Keld was not much taller than Lockwood. His iron-grey hair seemed to hold the pearly light of the day and framed his head, like a silver halo. His eyes also caught the light, making them appear wet. Lockwood offered Keld tea and toast. The other man had already turned down anything more elaborate. ‘Is Susan well?’ the Prime Minister asked.

  ‘Thank you, yes. And the boys, both doing well at school. Sally?’

  Lockwood inclined his head. ‘Still hates this flat and is very on edge about our grandson in hospital . . . but otherwise . . . we’re fine.’ He paused. The invitation to Keld had been sudden – peremptory – and both of them were uneasy with small talk. ‘Hatfield says you wish to raise a certain matter in Cabinet.’

  Keld’s cup, half-way to his lips, suddenly stopped.

  Good, thought Lockwood. First round to me. He didn’t know that we know. ‘I don’t know how you found out about all this but I’d prefer it if you didn’t raise the matter in Cabinet, George. I can’t risk this thing leaking.’

  Keld had flushed red but was beginning to recover. ‘I think you’re wrong, Prime Minister. Very wrong. From what I know of this matter, you are placing this government in jeopardy and all over something that is fifty years old.’

  ‘The popularity – or otherwise – of the royal family is hardly a dead issue, George. And two members of the Cabinet are involved. Are you suggesting I should have just stood to one side and let Her Majesty cope with these people . . . this Brigade . . . all alone?’

  ‘Quite frankly . . . yes, that’s exactly what I would have expected had I . . . I would have given you that advice, had you asked me.’

  ‘And if the whole thing leaked . . . you would have been prepared to sit and watch the Queen go through hell, in public?’

  ‘It’s not the government’s fight, Bill. Why should we suffer for the foibles of a man who has been dead for years?’

  ‘I’m not aware that we have suffered yet. And it is our fight. As I say, two members of the Cabinet are involved – their families, at least. That’s a risk best avoided.’

  ‘But look at the mess you’re getting into . . . demonstrations, the Trustees resigning at the British Museum, all those buildings daubed with paint. This could be your nemesis, Bill.’

  ‘Not unless you insist on raising this matter in Cabinet, George. We do have a team working on this whole thing, and we’re making progress all the time. We’ll be ready to move against them soon.’

  ‘Soon may be too late.’

  ‘As I say, George, not unless you insist on raising the issue this morning. If you bring this matter to Cabinet, we can kiss goodbye to secrecy and therefore any chance of catching the Apollo Brigade and disposing of them quietly. The royal family would be exposed to terrible publicity . . . I don’t know where it will lead but, if I can avoid it, avoid it I will. The government would be seen as divided and as having co-operated in a cover-up – and what effect that would have on our chances at the election I simply don’t know.’

  ‘I don’t see it your way, Bill. I’m sorry. I think you have shown a grave error of judgement here. Not just in the fact that you chose to help the Palace in the first place, but also in the fact that you kept the secret to yourself and chose not to tell the rest of your government. If ever there was a question which required a Cabinet decision, this is it.’

  Keld was obdurate. Lockwood saw that he would have no choice but to use Hatfield’s piece of slime. ‘But there are uses for secrecy, don’t you think, George? Even you can be secretive at times.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Keld frowned.

  ‘I’m thinking of an episode . . . a long time ago . . . a very long time. When you were much younger and, well . . . not so much irresponsible as . . . unlucky.’

  Keld said nothing. He was certainly tough, Lockwood reflected. He must know what the Prime Minister was alluding to but he was going to make him say it.
‘As I’m told the story, George, you were married at the time of this . . . accident. A child, a daughter. Linda, I believe she’s called – yes? In her early twenties, by now, I should think. Possibly with children of her own. A whole secret side to you, George. Don’t think I’m disapproving, by the way –’

  ‘Stop!’ Keld glared at Lockwood. ‘Let me get this straight. You are proposing a trade? If I raise this royal business in Cabinet, you are going to leak the existence of Linda . . . One blackmail leads to another.’

  ‘I prefer your first choice of words. A trade.’

  ‘And if I don’t agree –?’

  ‘If you don’t agree, you will probably bring us both down.’

  ‘How do I know that, even if we agree this time, you won’t use the fact of Linda’s existence at some other point in the future?’

  ‘You don’t, George. You’ll have to take my word for it. But that’s why I say I prefer the word “trade”. I mean to imply that this is a clean swap. One favour for a favour in return. Non-reusable. One day you hope to take over from me. Since we’re being so frank, let me say that I believe you hoped to take over from me sooner rather than later. That you thought you might stand against me in this year’s leadership contest, in October. That is part – even the main part – of your desire to raise this blackmail business in Cabinet today. You’d like to see me replaced as leader of the party and preferably before the next election. What I’m saying is that you can take your chances later. When I decide to bow out, I shan’t stand in your way and I won’t use Linda. But I’m not giving up this address – much as Sally hates the flat – in a coup organized by my own party. I promoted almost all the present Cabinet, you included, George, so don’t think you can leap-frog me. If you try, you’ll get bitten in the balls!’ Lockwood looked at his watch. ‘Now, we’ve been talking long enough . . . You’ve got work to do and so have I. Do we have a trade – or not?’ The Prime Minister sat back in his chair but his eyes held Keld’s.