The Plantagenet Mystery

by Victoria Prescott

  Chris made his way back to where Rob was still sitting on the ground.

  ‘He got away.’

  ‘He got the document, and the ring,’ said Rob.

  There was no time for more. The security man, evidently disturbed by the shouting and running feet, had come out of his cabin and was jogging towards them. Without discussion, both of them knew they were not going to tell him what they had been doing.

  ‘What’s going on? What happened ?’ demanded the security man as soon as he was near enough.

  ‘Someone knocked him down and legged it,’ replied Chris, since that much was obvious. He grasped Rob’s upper arm and hauled him to his feet.

  ‘Do you need an ambulance?’ the security man asked.

  ‘No. I’m OK. I think,’ said Rob, wincing as he cautiously felt his ribs with his good hand.

  ‘You got a first aid box in there?’ Chris said, nodding towards the cabin.

  ‘Yeah – all right – come inside.’

  Rob sat down in the cabin while the security man – Terry Kemp was the name Chris read on his badge – took the first aid kit off a shelf and handed it to Chris. Chris opened it and began to turn the contents out on the table.

  ‘You want to call the police?’ Terry Kemp asked.

  ‘Not much point,’ Rob said. ‘I didn’t see him, I wouldn’t be able to describe him or identify him.’

  Chris thought Terry seemed relieved to hear Rob did not want to call the police. He said nothing about having seen the registration number of the car. He and Rob would talk about it later, but he did not suppose Rob would be any more eager than he was to explain their activities to the police. He ripped open a pack of antiseptic wipes and handed one to Rob.

  ‘Better clean up your face,’ he said. ‘You had a tetanus shot lately?’

  Rob took the wipe and began to dab gingerly at his face, cleaning the graze as well as he could without a mirror. Terry was putting away the contents of the first aid box, which Chris had left strewn across the table. The light from the desk lamp, angled towards the sports pages spread out on the table, highlighted the back of Terry’s hand. Chris saw the scar, opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind.

  ‘What have you done to your wrist?’ he said, turning back to Rob.

  ‘It’s just twisted,’ Rob said, flexing it painfully. It was already swollen.

  ‘You want to go to Casualty?’

  ‘What, and spend half the night sitting in a waiting room with all the Friday night drunks, just for someone to tell me what I already know? It’ll be all right if I just rest it for a couple of days.’

  Back at Rob’s, Chris made coffee while Rob cleaned himself up more effectively than he had been able to in Terry Kemp’s cabin. His wrist had stiffened up on the drive home, and his ribs hurt when he moved too suddenly. He thought he was in for an uncomfortable couple of days. He sat down cautiously, wincing when reaching for his coffee pulled at his side.

  ‘So what happened?’ Chris asked. Rob explained.

  ‘And I really didn’t see him,’ he finished. ‘Even when I was on my back, looking up at him, all I could see was a silhouette. He must be fit, and he was stronger than me. That’s all I can tell you.’

  ‘So was he this Mr X who’s been after the book, or was he just some mugger who was hanging around?’ Chris wondered.

  ‘It was Mr X,’ Rob said with certainty. ‘He knew what he was after. And why would a random mugger have been hanging around at Ashleigh? He wouldn’t be likely to find many people to mug out there!’

  ‘Well, if it was him, how come he was there just when we were there?’

  ‘Just having a look round, like we did that first time?’

  Chris was not convinced. It seemed like too much of a coincidence. He said nothing about having seen the registration number of the vehicle the man had driven away in. There did not seem to be anything they could do with the information; taking it to the police would mean having to explain what they themselves were doing there. Chris did not want to do that; apart from any thing else, he would probably lose his job.

  ‘Is that ring what he was after? If it’s real gold, I s’pose it’s worth something,’ said Chris.

  ‘It couldn’t be worth enough to account for everything that’s happened,’ Rob argued. ‘The break in at Emily’s, Wayne – if that was to do with this business – tonight – anyway, he went for the document first. He really wanted that. There must be more than just a gold ring at stake.’

  ‘I s’pose that document would’ve told us what it’s all about.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Rob was angry with himself for not putting up more of a fight against his attacker, for not managing to hold on to the document. Chris, he thought, would not have allowed himself to be overpowered so easily. He was also deeply disappointed that he would not be the first person to read that document and discover what secrets it contained. Although –

  ‘There’s one thing,’ he said to Chris. ‘Unless whoever has it is skilled in 16th century palaeography, he won’t be able to read it either.’

  When Chris had left, Rob stayed up for a while, nursing his sore wrist, thinking back over the evening. He had been taken by surprise, not just by the attack on him, but by its viciousness. There had been a feeling that his attacker had not particularly cared how much injury he caused. Rob had thought that Wayne’s death was probably related to some other criminal activity he had been involved in. Now he was changing his mind. He could quite believe that the man who had attacked him that evening might kill, casually and without regret, anyone who stood in his way.

  Until now, despite what had happened to Emily, it had been an intellectual puzzle for Rob, one he had not even entirely believed in. Now he thought again of Thomas Mildmay and Richard Plantagenet, the times in which they had lived, the risks they had run. He and Chris had talked casually about treason, and the chopping of heads, but the reality – the moment when you knelt and placed your head on the block and flung out your arms to show the headsman you were ready – how could anyone ever be ready for that moment? Some – many – ended there through no action of their own, but others were led there by the conviction of their own rightness. What principle, what belief, what prospect of power, would cause someone to risk such an end?

  It was all reduced to names and dates on a page now, Rob thought. But these people had existed, and lived in fear, and died, sometimes for no other reason than that they had the wrong bloodline. Rob wondered how he would react to the prospect of torture and violent death. Would he face it with dignity, as, by all accounts, these people mostly did? Or would he be reduced to a state of abject terror?

  Chapter Twelve

  Rob had a bad night. His wrist throbbed and his bruised ribs made it impossible to lie comfortably in bed. He unearthed a packet of painkillers from the back of a kitchen drawer and took two, but they seemed to make little difference. The next morning he could not comfortably write or type or use the mouse on his computer. It had to be his right wrist that was injured, he thought irritably. He tried to read, but his sore ribs and lack of sleep made it hard to concentrate. Chris was annoyingly cheerful when he turned up to work on his house. Since there was nothing Rob could usefully do in his present condition, he soon returned to his own house.

  On Monday, although his wrist was still stiff and swollen, he was able to move more easily. In the afternoon, he walked to Emily’s house to find the papers Claire had asked him to send. The neighbour was surprised to see him when he introduced himself.

  ‘Yes, Claire did phone. But Laura came, so I thought you wouldn’t be coming. She hasn’t brought the key back, so I suppose she’s still there.’

  Rob thanked the woman. He hesitated on the pavement, debating with himself. He was more likely than Laura to be able to find the papers Emily wanted. He opened Emily’s front gate, walked up the path and rang the doorbell.

  Laura looked surprised, flustered, even slightly guilty when she saw him.

  ‘Yes, Claire said she�
��d asked you, but I thought I’d just run over after school. I wanted to do something for Auntie.’

  To Rob’s intense discomfort, her eyes filled with tears and her chin wobbled. He was tempted to walk away immediately, but for Emily’s sake he asked,

  ‘Did you find the papers she wanted? I know how she has everything arranged, if you need any help.’

  ‘I’m sure I can find them. There’s no need for you to bother.’

  She was clearly not going to let him in. There was nothing for Rob to do but turn and walk away. He was annoyed at the lack of apology for wasting his time. Mostly, however, he was relieved not to have to spend more time with Laura; he found a little of her company went a very long way.

  Chris was relieved, on arriving at work on Monday, to find that no-one appeared to have noticed anything amiss following his and Rob’s activities in the house on Friday. Terry the security guard had evidently not reported their presence or the attack on Rob. Chris was not surprised; he had his own reasons for thinking that Terry would not welcome any police interest in Ashleigh.

  His satisfied mood did not last long. It was clear they were near to finishing clearing out the Victorian wing of the house and ripping out all the cheap, modern fittings. There was still plenty of work for skilled men, but there would soon be less need for unskilled labour. Chris’s worries were realised late in the afternoon, when the foreman told them that half of them would be let go at the end of the week.

  ‘Who’s going?’ Chris demanded. The foreman looked at him.

  ‘You know how it works. Last in, first out.’

  It was what Chris had expected, but that did not mean he was any happier about it.

  ‘If I hadn’t wasted my time there, I could have got a decent job by now,’ he said to Rob that evening.

  ‘Wasted time? We were looking for the document – for historical evidence. And we found it.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you didn’t manage to hang on to it, did you? Now I’m back to going the rounds of the sites, hearing over and over that they’re only looking for men with certificates.’

  ‘Well, why don’t you just go and get the bloody certificates, instead of whining about it all the time.’

  ‘Not everybody thinks they need a piece of paper to prove they can do something. Some of us have spent our time earning money doing proper jobs, not poncing around doing research, and spouting a lot of useless crap. You want to take your head out of your books and parchments and papers and take a look at what goes on in the real world sometime.’

  Rob had been about to apologise, but poor sleep and the walk to and from Emily’s had left him tired, his wrist hurt, his ribs hurt, his time had been wasted by Laura Leighton, he had not done anything useful all day, and he was sick of always having to justify his life.

  ‘I’m not going to pretend I don’t know things when I do, just to cater to your inferiority complex.’

  ‘Oh well, screw you, then!’ Chris walked out.

  Rob was not accustomed to losing his temper; arguments made him uncomfortable and he was more likely to walk away from a confrontation. But he had spent much of his life to that point pretending to be someone he was not in order to fit in with other people’s ideas of who he should be. He was determined not to do it any more. He did not have so many friends that he could afford to lose one; but then he was not entirely sure that he and Chris had really been friends. They had been thrown together by this affair, now it was over. It would be awkward having Chris next door; they would be bound to run into each other at times. However, it would not be for long. Chris would finish the house, sell it and move on. Very likely they would not have kept in touch in any case once that had happened.

  By the time he went into the record office that week, Rob was able to use his wrist more easily, but he had to deal with comments about the graze and bruise on his cheek. He turned off joking remarks about looking as if he had been in a fight with a vague story of having had a fall, but found himself slightly annoyed that clearly no-one seriously thought he really had been in a fight. At the class on Friday evening a couple of the older ladies expressed concern at his injuries but were too polite to press for details.

  On his way home from the class, Rob bought fish and chips, then stopped off in the corner shop for milk and bread. As he approached his house, he saw a white van parked outside. Chris must be there, he supposed. He had seen the van once or twice on other evenings, but so far they had managed to avoid each other. He kept his head down as he got out his keys, juggling his purchases, and let himself in. They were bound to come face to face sooner or later, and Rob supposed he would apologise then, but he was not ready for such an awkward conversation yet.

  As usual, Rob kicked off his shoes, dumped his backpack and went to the kitchen and put the fish and chips, milk and bread down on the worktop. He turned on the light, put water in the kettle and switched it on.

  He was spooning coffee into a mug when something dark and soft dropped over his head. Unable to see, for a moment he was completely disoriented. Then rough hands seized him, twisting his arm behind his back, and he understood that there was an intruder in the house. He drew a breath to call out, but only succeeded in taking a mouthful of the blanket, or whatever covered him. He lashed out with his free hand, and heard his mug crashing to the ground and shattering.

  More hands took hold of him. There were two of them, he thought. He was manhandled out of the kitchen towards the front of the house. Rob fought as hard as he could. He kicked out behind and made contact with a shinbone, but with no shoes on he could do little damage. He flung himself to one side, and they crashed into his worktable; he heard books and papers falling, and could feel paper under his feet. He was hustled out of his front door and, he thought, into the back of a van. So it was not Chris’s van he had seen parked outside, he thought irrelevantly. One set of hands was removed, but his other captor held him down on the floor, the blanket still over his head. He heard the back doors of the van slam, then the driver’s door, then the engine started and the van began to move.

  Rob did not know how long they drove before the vehicle stopped. After a moment he heard the doors being opened, and then he was dragged out, blanket still over his head, made to stumble a few paces, then given a hard shove. By the time he had regained his balance and fought his way free of the blanket, he had heard the door slam shut behind him and the rattle and clunk of a padlock being fastened. Rob had not caught a glimpse of either of the men, and neither of them had spoken.

  It was pitch dark. Rob moved forward cautiously, hands held out in front of him. He stubbed his toe painfully on something. Examining it by touch, he found it was a chair, the cheap plastic kind found in back gardens all over the country. Deciding that there was nothing he could do until daylight, he sat down. A few minutes later, he stood up again to find the blanket he had dropped. Wherever he was, it was chilly.

  A little more cautious exploration discovered another chair, and he sat with his feet up, wrapped in the blanket. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he was able to make out a window, high up on one wall. But there were no street lights and no sounds. Of course, his captors would not have left him anywhere he could attract attention by making a noise, Rob thought.

  This was what they had done to Jason. Taken him against his will, held him down in the back of a van, frightened him. But they’d had good reason, he argued with himself. Jason and Wayne had burgled Emily’s house, had injured her. But he and Chris were equally guilty of burglary, although they had not hurt anyone.

  He must have dozed, intermittently. Eventually, he opened his eyes to find that it was no longer completely dark. Over the next half hour, as the sky outside lightened, he was able to make out the details of his prison. He seemed to be in some kind of shed or cabin, with one window, and the door through which he had been pushed the night before. The cabin contained nothing but the two uncomfortable plastic chairs and an old newspaper discarded in the corner.

  Standing precari
ously on one of the chairs, Rob looked out of the window. He could see walls of white chalk, young trees, undergrowth. He was in an abandoned quarry. There were many in the county. Even if he was near a road, the chances of him being found were pretty much zero. The window was not made to open. Rob could have smashed it, but he was fairly sure it was too small for him to climb through, and breaking it would only make his prison colder.

  He turned to examine the rest of the hut. It did not seem very strongly constructed, but it was solid enough to resist all Rob’s attempts to escape. He was unable to damage the door or its hinges. Hurling himself at it repeatedly just gave him a new set of bruises to add to those he already had. He gave up and sat down again.

  He had been hungry before he was taken. That was not bothering him so much now. The result of stress, he supposed. He was thirsty. A search through his pockets produced half a packet of mints. He sucked one and wished for something to read. He had already read the newspaper twice. Not that it had taken long. Page Three had done nothing to warm him up – he did not go for big boobs – and the pages were not big enough to use as blankets, homeless fashion. Bloody tabloids, no use for anything, he thought, feeling that in the circumstances he was entitled to indulge in a bit of intellectual snobbery.

  There was nothing left to do except wonder why he had been brought here. He assumed it was related to this affair he and Chris had got themselves into. But why? Mr X, whoever he was, already had the document. Did he still want the book? Did he know that Rob had it?

  Would Rob agree to hand it over, if that was what it took to get out of here? Yes, of course he would. There was no matter of principle involved. Whatever it was all about could not be important enough to risk continued imprisonment. Or injury. Or worse. Rob imagined Wayne Simpson’s body, as Chris had described it. He would do whatever it took to save himself, short of hurting someone else.