The Plantagenet Mystery

by Victoria Prescott

  ‘Nigel Pierson. What sort of poncy name is that? Lives in a swish house out in Audley Avenue. Know him?’

  ‘No.’ Rob reached for a notebook and wrote down the name. ‘Do we know anything else about him?’

  ‘Drives a flash Range Rover. Or he did,’ said Chris with a grin.

  ‘Why? What happened to it? Wait – was that what that terrific crash was last night, just before you turned up?’

  ‘Yep. Sent it over the edge. Made a pretty good smash, didn’t it?’ Chris could not conceal his glee at the memory, and Rob said,

  ‘You enjoyed it, didn’t you?’

  ‘OK, yeah, I did. But I needed a diversion, and there wasn’t a better one.’

  ‘It was excellent timing. Things might’ve been about to turn nasty just then. But what if he reports it? You could be in serious trouble.’

  ‘How would he know it was me? I made sure not to leave any prints, even if there’s anything left of it to get prints from.’

  ‘If he saw you with me the night he took the document from me, he’d have a pretty good idea who did it.’

  ‘I doubt he’d finger me, though. He wouldn’t want me talking to the police, would he? He’ll probably report the car stolen, so he can claim on the insurance, and if it’s found it’ll be put down to kids. But don’t you want to go to the police? You been kidnapped, held prisoner, threatened. And we know who to point them at, now.’

  Rob had not thought about it. He considered it briefly, then dismissed the idea.

  ‘What could we tell them? We still don't know why this is all happening. And it’d be our word against his.’

  ‘I bet they’d find evidence of you being in that shed if they looked.’

  Rob shook his head again.

  ‘There won’t be any evidence of him – Pierson – being in the shed, because he wasn’t, and only your word that he was even there in the quarry.’

  ‘What about the document? There’d be fingerprints on it, wouldn’t there? That bloke we took it off, he wasn’t wearing gloves. And I bet he’d be spilling his guts before the cop had even finished getting the caution out. He might do time for a mate, but not for a flash git like Pierson.’

  Rob felt a surge of proprietary feeling for the document. He was horrified at the idea of it being put through forensic examination, and having silver fingerprint dust sprinkled all over it. And after all they – he – had gone through to get it, the idea of handing it over to someone else, of not being the one who would unfold it, read it, study it, was unthinkable.

  ‘Do you think Pierson killed Wayne?’ he said. His conscience would not allow him to let a murderer go free.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Chris. ‘Not going by what I saw. I think he’s the sort who wouldn’t want to get his hands dirty. He might want it done, but he’d leave the dirty work to someone else.’

  ‘So it’s more likely that Wayne died because of something else he was involved in.’ Rob was relieved at the idea; it was not pleasant to think that he had been in the power of a killer. ‘We’ve done some pretty dodgy things ourselves,’ he went on. ‘Kidnapping Jason. Getting into Ashleigh and finding that document. Then what you did last night with the car. Do you want to tell the police all that? And we'd be getting that policeman – Terry – into trouble. That doesn’t seem fair, when you couldn't have found me without his help.’

  ‘He can look out for himself, far as I’m concerned. But, if you say so,’ said Chris.

  ‘Anyway, my being kidnapped has turned out to be a good thing. We’ve got the document back. Now I can look at it and maybe we’ll find out what all this is about.’

  ‘I’ve got something, too,’ Chris remembered. He reached for his jacket and retrieved the envelope, which he had rolled up and put in an inside pocket.

  ‘I took this out of the car before I sent it over the edge. Pierson had it with him when he came out of the house, so I thought it might have something to do with this business.’

  He peered into the envelope and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Rob could see that it was closely written. Chris looked at it then handed it over to Rob.

  ‘Here. You’re the expert. I can’t read a word of it.’

  The single sheet had been folded in two. Rob carefully flattened it.

  ‘It’s a letter,’ he said, squinting at the closely written lines of brown ink. The writer had covered nearly all of the four sides, then turned the paper and crossed the page, writing at right-angles to the original writing. The paper had then been folded again and sealed, the address written on the blank part of the fourth side. Some of the red sealing wax still adhered to the edges.

  ‘Late eighteenth century, I’d say, judging by the handwriting,’ Rob continued.

  ‘Why’d they write it like that, with the writing going two ways?’

  ‘You paid postage according to number of pages in a letter back then, so you tried to keep it to one page if you could.’

  Rob set the letter aside. He could not make sense of it just by skimming; he would have to take the time to make a proper transcript. He reached for the document from Ashleigh, which he had brought downstairs with him and had kept within reach all the time.

  The phone rang, loud in the otherwise quiet room. Rob reached for it, then hesitated, looking at Chris. Chris stiffened, leaning forward in his chair, as if preparing to fight a voice on the telephone. Rob picked up the handset.

  ‘Hallo? Oh – hallo, Claire.’ Rob nodded at Chris, and saw Chris relax. Claire wanted to know if Rob had found the papers Emily wanted.

  ‘No, Laura did. Yes, I went to the house, but she said she could find them on her own. How is Emily? Good. Give her my regards, when you speak to her.’

  ‘Any more progress on the mystery?’ Claire asked.

  ‘Yes, there have been developments. Quite dramatic. No, too complicated to go into over the phone.... All right, see you then.’

  ‘She’s coming down next weekend,’ Rob said to Chris, after he had ended the call.

  ‘You going to tell her everything?’

  ‘Well, maybe not everything.’ Rob was fairly sure Claire would disapprove quite strongly of some of their activities. ‘But she ought to know about the document. This all started because her aunt was burgled, after all.’

  ‘Let’s have a look at this document, then.’ Chris hitched forward in his chair. Rob looked at him.

  ‘I thought you weren’t interested in bits of old parchment.’

  ‘Yeah, well, this bit’s caused enough trouble, hasn’t it? I want to see what all the fuss has been about.’

  Rob unfolded the parchment, handling it carefully. It was stiff, and would not lie flat on the coffee table. Rob had to fetch books to weight the corners.

  ‘I don’t think he – Pierson – can have unfolded it completely,’ Rob said. ‘It would lie flat better if it had already been flattened once. He probably just opened it enough to see that he couldn’t read it. He probably hasn’t made a photocopy, or photographed it.’

  The document was one sheet of closely written parchment.

  ‘Doesn’t look like a professional scribe,’ Rob said, studying it carefully. ‘And the hand looks quite archaic for something that was supposedly written in the mid sixteenth century.’

  ‘But you can read it, right?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Rob was relieved to find that it was in English. His Latin, while adequate for translating short passages where he had some idea of the content, was not up to tackling something like this. He read out the opening words of the document.

  In the Name of God and in the yere of Oure Lord 1548 and in ye second yere of the reyne of oure Sovraine Lord Kynge Edward ye Sixte

  ‘Well, the date’s right and the handwriting’s right,’ he said. ‘It’ll take me some time to transcribe it, though.’

  Apart from a brief trip home to return his mate’s car and pick up the van, and to fetch a change of clothes, Chris spent the rest of the weekend with Rob, either in Rob’s house or in his ow
n. Rob was embarrassed at the idea that he needed a babysitter, but he was glad of the company; alone he would probably have been startling at every rattle of a window or door or creak of a floorboard. Chris had to leave early on Monday morning to drive to Ashleigh. Rob grinned when Chris told him he would be working for the restoration firm.

  ‘Look, it’s a job, all right,’ Chris said. ‘Me, I’d still rather have a nice modern place, and no messing about with original doorknobs and the like.’

  Rob planned to take the document to the record office for safekeeping, as he had with Emily’s book. After some thought, he left the letter Chris had found in Pierson’s car at home, although he was careful to hide it away. Pierson did not know they had it; he probably believed it had burned up with the car.

  Chris had to leave for Ashleigh well before the record office would be open, but he dropped Rob at the railway station, where he could wait in the cafeteria, and from where he would have quite a short walk along busy streets to the record office. It was the first time Rob had been out since his kidnap. He felt very exposed as he walked along the street, and had to resist the urge to look over his shoulder, or to break into a jog. He had the document in his backpack, and the possibility of losing it once more was almost worse than the thought that he might be abducted again himself. He relaxed when he reached the record office.

  The staff did not expect to see him on a Monday. He told them he had come to do some research for his thesis. He could not work on the document in the office or public search room; someone would want to know what it was. He took it, and a pad of A4 paper and several freshly sharpened pencils, into one of the document storage rooms. The table and chair there were rickety, and the air conditioning made the room cold, but he knew he would be able to work uninterrupted.

  Making the transcript was slow work. Since he did not want to risk taking the document out of the record office, Rob could not work on it at home in the evenings. The document had lain folded since it had been written, so the inside of the parchment was clean and new; the writing was not obscured by grime or damp. But some of the words disappeared into the deep creases, and Rob had to flatten it with both hands to read them, while knowing that he should not be touching the surface so much. The handwriting was a more archaic style than Rob was accustomed to, and became faint and straggling at times, as if the writer was tiring. Then it would begin again more strongly, as if the man had rested and returned refreshed. The story that unfolded, as Rob deciphered the writing of a tired old man, was one of courage and loyalty. His scepticism fell away as he was drawn into that time of violence, intrigue and fear.

  Rob’s satisfaction at having recovered the document and fascination with the information that was emerging as he worked on the transcription transcribed it caused his kidnap to fade further from his mind. As the week passed, and Pierson seemed to make no move, he relaxed further.

  ‘But why hasn’t he done anything?’ he said to Chris one evening. ‘If it was important enough to burgle Emily’s house, and kidnap me, he’s not going to give up now, surely?’

  ‘Maybe he’s waiting to see what you do,’ Chris suggested. ‘You might have gone to the police. Maybe he’s skipped. Lying low. Gone abroad.’

  Rob’s absorption in the transcription caused him to neglect his other work. He was less well-prepared than he should have been for his meeting with his supervisor that week. He had not yet sorted all the papers that had been spilled as he struggled with his kidnappers, and so had not been able to look through his notes. He was not ready with an answer when Dr Kane asked his opinion of this or that historian’s work.

  ‘You seem a bit distracted,’ said Dr Kane, after a while. ‘Any problems?’

  Rob wondered what the man would say if he answered,

  ‘Actually, yes. I was kidnapped from my house and held prisoner for twenty four hours.’

  Rob would not have confided in Dr Kane in any case; their relationship was no more than professional, their meetings the minimum required by the university. He replied,

  ‘There was an accident to my notes. I don’t think anything’s destroyed, but I haven’t had time to sort them properly yet.’

  That evening, Rob sat down to go through his papers. Photocopies of documents, notes from books and articles he had read, print outs of drafts of chapters, were jumbled together. He sorted the pages of Amory’s Commonweal into the right order, and replaced them on his desk. A couple of the pages had been trampled underfoot and were torn and illegible in places. He would be referring to it in his introduction, but was not ready to start work on that yet. When the time came, he would get new copies of those pages.

  He paused when he came to the will of Joane Moreton, a widow who died in 1547, and the inventory of her goods. The evidence suggested her concerns were simple; the daughter and goddaughter to whom she bequeathed her wedding ring, her two woollen gowns, and her household linen; her farm, with its forty acres of wheat and barley, and hundred and fifty sheep; the son who would inherit. Yet she had lived, not very far from Ashleigh, through the same events as the man who wrote that document. How much did she know of them? How much did she care?

  Claire arrived on Saturday afternoon. Rob had forgotten quite how briskly efficient she was. He made coffee for the three of them. He had not yet replaced the mug that had been broken during his struggle with his abductors and was again faced with using the chipped one. He wondered if giving it to Claire would count as rudeness to a guest, or if she would think it sexist if he did not give it to her. He was having second thoughts about telling her all their adventures. Claire, however, was tolerating no prevarication or evasion.

  ‘This all started because my aunt was attacked in her own home,’ she said. ‘I want to know what’s going on, and whether Auntie Emily will be safe if she comes home.’

  It could have been worse, Rob thought. She could have brought Laura with her. Resigned, he gave her an edited account of events. He told Claire how Chris had identified Wayne from what Emily had remembered. He told her how they had talked to Jason, but not the circumstances in which the conversation had taken place. He did not mention Wayne Simpson’s death, and rather glossed over exactly how they had discovered the document at Ashleigh. He did go into detail about his abduction and Chris’s rescue, and told her that they now knew the name of the man who was behind all that had happened. If he had thought this sanitised account would satisfy her, he was soon disappointed.

  ‘So has Wayne turned up? Have you asked him about it?’ she said.

  Rob was not a natural liar when faced with a direct question, and it seemed that neither was Chris. He looked uncomfortable and hesitated when Claire turned to him. His hesitation was enough to tell Claire that something was wrong.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened to Wayne?’ she demanded sharply.

  ‘He’s dead,’ Chris admitted at last. He described how he had found the body, evidently still shaken at the memory. Claire too looked shocked.

  ‘Wayne was involved in all sorts of dubious activities. His death probably has nothing at all to do with this affair,’ Rob said, attempting to reassure.

  ‘Probably has nothing to do with it?’ Claire was scathing. She asked more questions; exactly how had they acquired the document at Ashleigh? How had Chris discovered Pierson’s identity? Rob did not know what Claire did with her law degree, but whatever it was, he thought she was in the wrong career; she should have been a barrister. By the time she had finished her interrogation, there was little she did not know about their activities.

  ‘You’re behaving like characters out of Harry Potter or Indiana Jones,’ she said.

  ‘I’m a historian, not an archaeologist,’ Rob said, trying to sound assertive.

  ‘Can’t see you with a whip,’ Chris agreed, grinning.

  ‘Oh, what does it matter?’ Claire said impatiently. ‘It’s all history.’

  ‘Historians read documents. Archaeologists dig things up.’

  ‘You should have gone to the poli
ce,’ Claire went on, ignoring this.

  ‘And told them what?’ Rob asked. ‘You’re a lawyer , you must know we had nothing concrete to tell them, no evidence of anything.’

  ‘I told you before, I’m not a criminal lawyer. But if you want my legal opinion, I’d say if you went to the police now, you’d both be in trouble up to your necks.’

  ‘So you see why we can’t go to the police now? If any of this came out, we’d both be finished professionally.’

  ‘Pretty stupid to risk your careers over something you thought was just a fairy tale,’ said Claire, unsympathetically.

  ‘Yes, but it turns out it wasn’t a fairytale,’ said Rob.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rob was pleased to see Claire left speechless for once. She recovered quickly, however.

  ‘You mean the story – that you didn’t believe in – is true?’

  ‘Seems like it.’

  ‘Don’t you mind being wrong?’ Claire demanded.

  ‘No. Well, not in this case, anyway.’

  ‘Well, come on,’ said Chris. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  On the principle of saving the best to last, Rob began with the letter Chris had taken from Pierson’s car.

  ‘It’s addressed to Miss Mildmay, at Ashleigh Manor. Dated 24 April 1801. Signed your affectionate aunt, Catherine Finch.’

  ‘Wait, I thought you said it was Sir Thomas Mildmay who married a Finch, back in fifteen hundred and something?’ Chris said. ‘How can she still be someone’s auntie, more than two hundred years later?’

  ‘The Mildmays and Finches intermarried several times,’ Rob said. ‘This Catherine’s sister married a Mildmay.’

  ‘Oh, OK.’

  Rob continued reading.

  ‘My Dear Maria, I was very glad to receive your letter ... This first part is all family gossip. News about the war and someone serving in the Navy. Then we get to the important bit. Maria’s cataloguing her father’s library.’

  You ask about my father’s book. My father did indeed give a copy to your grandfather to place in the library at Ashleigh. That it is not there now is, I regret to say, in all probability due to my own youthful foolishness and desire to parade my knowledge.