“I’ll have to check, but I reckon three to four hours.”
“Then it looks like an early start in the morning, I’ll firm up on details concerning the fete and we’ll reconvene at four to finalise our plans for tomorrow. In the meantime, I suggest you all take some time out, and enjoy the seminary. Hopefully, the end of our journey is in sight. Any questions?”
“Just one,” voiced Beckett.
“Yes, Thomas?” enquired Cavendish earnestly.
“Yea, the next time you deliver a monologue could you use more kitten feet.”
“Kitten feet?” queried the inquisitor.
“Yea,” responded Beckett, “more pawses.”
CHAPTER 41. AND THE SINNER IS...
It was a beautiful evening in Derbyshire and with the coming of dusk, the plantation surrounding Flash Seminary appeared to form a solid, comforting wall of seclusion. To Beckett it felt as though he and Cavendish stood in a vast room beneath a painted starry sky. The warmth of the day had given way to a chilly but calm evening; the air was filled with the scent of pine oil and the effervescence of spring. It was difficult to differentiate between the cigarette smoke and his warm breath as it condensed in the chill night air.
“Our last night at Flash then, Marsh,” commented Beckett reflectively.
“Yes. Do you like it here, Thomas? You certainly seem to have taken many photos,” answered Cavendish quietly, as if talking loudly would shatter the fragile calm of the evening.
“Yeah, the old place does have a certain something,” replied Beckett pensively. He was in a reflective mood, for tomorrow could see the end of the enquiry. He did not really know how a Cavendish case ended as he was unconscious and in hospital when the last one concluded.
“I’d like to thank you for the help you’ve given me”, said Cavendish.
“Thanks, though you know I haven’t really done much,” replied Beckett modestly.
“Are you always so self effacing? You’d make a lousy Untersucher with all that humility swilling around inside of you.” Beckett laughed at Cavendish’s estimation.
“You make it sound as if the end is nigh,” remarked Beckett.
“We are nearly there, Thomas. I’ll warn you now; I’m not very good at the end of an assignment. Josh usually tidies up, does all the boring bits, undoing all the damage I have caused.” Cavendish smiled conceitedly. “What I mean to say is that there is no wrap-party, no big get together for self congratulations, we all just disappear into the ether and go our separate ways.”
Cavendish’s words upset Beckett; he was saddened by the content and by Cavendish’s forthright delivery.
“Be sure you have put things in order tonight, Thomas. It’s the last evening that we are all certainly going to be together. If Emily is accepted by the firm then she could be whisked off at any time for induction.”
“And if she isn’t?”
“She will be, trust me.”
Silence reigned for several minutes; both men lost in their own private thoughts. Cavendish took an envelope out of his inner coat pocket and handed it to Beckett. Without his reading glasses, the photographer had little chance of reading the contents but he could make out his name written in a distinctive Germanic script.
“What is it?” Beckett asked as he went to open the envelope.
“Don’t open it now,” said Cavendish softly, “it contains a debit card to go with the credit card you already have and details of the off-shore account. It’s all very tedious stuff. Put it somewhere safe. Oh, and be aware that if you spend any of the money then you’re honour bound to be faithful to the firm.”
“Do you mean I’m part of the organisation?” asked Beckett excitedly.
“Not directly, you are not strictly on the books, you’re being paid in recognition of services rendered.”
Beckett was stunned; he had forgotten of late his primary motive of securing money for his daughter’s education. More recently, he had been distracted by the ensuing events and by a certain person in particular.
“How much?” enquired Beckett reverentially.
“Thomas, you can be so crass sometimes, I don’t know,” lied the Untersucher, “a few hundred I expect.”
“Thank you, Marchel,” said Beckett with genuine warmth, “a couple of hundred quid will be really useful.”
Cavendish corrected Beckett, “I think you misunderstand me, I apologise for my vagueness. I meant a few hundred thousand pounds, or Euros, much the same really.”
Beckett took a step backwards and felt uneasy on his feet, Cavendish smiled to himself, he could not resist playing his little games. Despite being a comparatively wealthy man in his own right and having little sense of value where money was concerned, he knew that the two hundred thousand Euros would mean a great deal to his friend.
Beckett's head whirled in such a way that only a lottery winner could possibly empathise, a myriad of thoughts and fantasies came into and vacated his head in an instant.
“What time is it, Marchel? I left my watch in my room.”
“It is five to eleven,” answered Cavendish, reading the time off his aviators watch.
“Do you think Emily will be asleep?” asked Beckett casually.
“How on earth should I know, you’re her best buddy, aren’t you? There’s only one way I know to find out, but please don’t go knocking on Blanch’s door by mistake.”
Beckett had barely listened to anything Cavendish had just said.
“I think I’ll turn in then, goodnight Marchel.” With that, Beckett hurried off towards the house. As Beckett was swallowed up by the darkness, Cavendish shouted after him.
“Goodnight, Thomas. Good luck and sweet dreams...”
CHAPTER 42. A CASE OF MISTAKEN CALAMITY.
A light buffet-style breakfast was laid out in the former servant’s hall, now the refectory and general hub for the occupants of the seminary. At just after six in the morning Cavendish was the first of the team to be seated. He drank coffee and nibbled indifferently at a bread roll with his boiled egg.
Houghton and Blanch ventured into the room together. Houghton gruffly made his solicitations to Cavendish whilst inspecting the breakfast selection. Blanch merely sat herself down heavily at the rustic wooden table next to Cavendish and supported her chin with her hands. Houghton passed Blanch a mug of coffee and sat down opposite her.
“Any sign of Romeo and Juliet?” asked Houghton.
“Not yet, Thomas is not known for his punctuality, anyway I hope he had a busy night,” answered Cavendish.
Blanch looked enquiringly at the inquisitor and Cavendish mischievously raised his heavy blonde eyebrows at her. It was as if Blanch suddenly woke up, her Brummie accent again tenaciously apparent.
"No way, they never! Did they?” Blanch glanced pryingly at Houghton who shrugged his shoulders as if to indicate he could not care less.
After a few minutes of silence, Beckett entered the room dressed in his new dark suit and his hair still damp from his morning shower. He nodded his greetings to the room and checked the food on offer. He sat down absently with his selection and a mug of steaming tea, taking the vacant seat at the head of the table. Beckett had an air of casual disregard about him as he tucked eagerly into his plate of food. He looked up to see Blanch studying him carefully. She leant to her right and jabbed Cavendish in the ribs to attract his attention.
“I reckon they did,” she whispered to Cavendish.
“Do you think so, Blanch?” replied Cavendish before he too stared hard at Beckett.
“What?” asked a confused Beckett, regarding both Cavendish and Blanch in turn, as if expecting an answer. “What?” repeated Beckett, elongating the vowel sound of the question.
Emily made her appearance; her long towel-dried hair lay heavily against the vertically striped summer dress that she had purchased in Fakenham. She took a croissant and a cup of coffee and sat quietly at the vacant seat at the end of the long table, ensuring the greatest degree of separation from Becket
t.
“They definitely did,” commented Blanch, Cavendish smiled and nodded his agreement.
At just before seven o’clock, the group made their way to the waiting cars. Cavendish stood idly by as Houghton and Blanch effusively bid their respective farewells to Kate Watercombe. Beckett suspiciously watched Kate have a long conversation with Emily as he loaded the case that combined his effects with those of Emily and similarly hefted Cavendish’s holdall into the boot of the Ford Focus.
“Couldn’t you have hired a bigger car,” moaned Cavendish as he stood beside the Focus, “Bethan could have acquired any vehicle you requested.”
“Sorry, Marsh,” said Beckett crankily, “I actually had other things on my mind at the time, I didn’t consider test driving alternative models. If you’ve got the hump this morning you can bloody well travel with Josh.”
“I have not ‘got the hump’, I just like to have ample leg room, it’s a three hour journey and I don’t like feeling confined, that’s all.”
“You never bloody complained when I drove you around Bristol and Bath in my Focus.”
“That was different.”
“How so?” asked Beckett argumentatively.
Emily joined them. “So what are you two arguing about now?” she asked as she opened the rear passenger door of the car.
“Oh, Marchel is just whinging about lack of leg room, that’s all,” informed Beckett.
“He’s right,” said Emily, “you should have thought to get a bigger car.” She gave Cavendish a conspiratorial wink and Beckett threw his hands skywards in exasperation.
Houghton and Blanch slowly pulled away in the large Audi, both waving as they drove by. For Beckett it was like saying goodbye to old friends after a shared holiday, such was the transformative consequence of spending the past few days at the seminary. Before stepping into the car, he took a final wistful look at the gothic vision that was Flash Seminary and returned Kate Watercombe’s wave before she turned and strolled into the entrance cloister. Thomas Beckett would never forget his time at the seminary as long as he lived; it had an aura and passion that he was incapable of defining.
Beckett settled himself in the driver’s seat, turned the ignition key and waited for the engine to assume a steady rhythm. He was about to put the car into gear when Cavendish tapped him on the shoulder and held out Beckett’s CD.
“I apologise now, Good Doctor, for what you are about to receive. You see, Thomas, I may have been burdened with the responsibility of retrieving potentially millions of dollars worth of Russian billet-doux, but I still had time to think of my friend Thomas and retrieve his CD from the Galaxy I was about to recklessly abandon to the Bristol rush hour. That is the difference between you and me, I think of other people’s feelings.”
As Beckett accepted the CD, Cavendish turned in his seat and returned Emily’s earlier wink.
“I think that was very sweet of Marchel,” declared Emily, joining in with the good-natured taunting of Thomas Beckett.
“Are you two going to pick on me for the whole bloody journey?” asked Beckett with no hint of antagonism, for he struggled to recall a time when he had felt more content and it was with a heavy heart that he left the charm and inspirational world of the seminary for the long drive south.
They left the overcast weather of the north midlands behind them and the sky cleared as they crossed into Gloucestershire on the M5. A journey had seldom past as speedily or with more apparent ease for Beckett. He educated Emily with regards to the subtleties of Bill Hardy’s music, even if she did question many of his observations and conclusions.
Cavendish occasionally joined in with the banter but had to concede it was not really his forte. When he was not speaking to Josh Houghton on his mobile he often reclined back in his seat and close his eyes, after first complaining about the lack of legroom, and listened to Emily and Beckett conversing.
Emily would flout the seatbelt legislation by sitting forward with her arms resting on the back of his and Beckett's seat. He could almost taste her sublime perfume; it was the same scent that he had first encountered when they shared the meal in Bristol. He again wondered if Beckett and Emily had considered their futures, a love driven by a man desperate for affection and a woman riven by guilt.
The Untersucher was not a great humanitarian, he had only made one real friend in his life and that was Sepp von Manstein, with whom he spent his school days and his time at University. Following the duelling incident, they had become best friends. As he often conceded, the scar totally changed his life. For the first time he found peer group acceptance, the scar was indeed the making of Marchel Cavendish. With the odd perversity upon which human kind thrives, Cavendish suddenly found himself attractive to both sexes and, with his naturally boyish charms replaced by an ostentatious disfigurement, he enjoyed the sexual gratification that had previously eluded him, all thanks to Sepp. For twelve electrifying months, he and Sepp were inseparable.
Then Sepp died. He did not die heroically in a blaze of glory; he died from flu-like symptoms, which exposed a hitherto unknown weakness within his heart. Cavendish was distraught, to have experienced intense friendship and to have it so quickly snatched away. He had a breakdown, culminating in the scars on his wrist, which ended his ambitions of becoming a doctor as his faith in medicine died along with his best friend. He transferred courses and after University Sepp’s father approached him. Matthias Graf von Manstein had a proposition for him regarding an organisation he had never heard of but one that intrigued him.
Cavendish convened a swift meeting at the Michael Wood Service Station, just north of Bristol, so that the team could go over any last minute details. Beckett took reassurance from Cavendish's relaxed demeanour as he shared a joke with Houghton; he was suffused with an inexplicable calm that made no sense to him. Perhaps he was just getting used to Cavendish’s world.
The sun lent warmth to the spring day as Beckett followed Houghton up the winding lane that led to Yoxter Manor. He was amazed by the number of cars on view for he had not considered the scale of the event they were about to attend. Stewards efficiently directed him into a field adjacent to the main property where parking provision had been laid on.
The plan was for Cavendish and Houghton to confront Hugo Victor whilst Beckett and Emily were to remain near the manor with Blanch as backup. Cavendish and Houghton dodged their way through the annoying throng of people who, from Cavendish’s blinkered perspective, had nothing better to do on this fine spring day.
A brass band, wearing smart blue uniforms, played a rousing tune that Cavendish failed to recognise but which Beckett could have informed him was ‘Congratulations’, the Cliff Richard Eurovision Song Contest entry. In due course, Cavendish spotted the marquee he was looking for, which housed the horticultural exhibits.
By mutual consent, the two men stopped outside the entrance. They glanced at each other and Cavendish offered Houghton a grin, for he was relishing the prospect of confronting Victor. The chief inspector was simply relieved that Cavendish had not offered some corny line like, ‘let’s do it!’
“Hello Hugo, how are you?” Hugo Victor was pampering his Freesias in the marquee with perhaps a dozen other exhibitors. Cavendish found the floral displays underwhelming and was oblivious to the powerful aromatic fragrances of the exhibits and damp grass that sweated beneath the warm canvas.
He recognised one stall displaying bottle gardens and another with a range of carnivorous plants such as Venus Fly Traps and Sundews. To Cavendish’s ill-informed opinion, even Victor’s own display of blooms seemed rather low-key and Victor irritably sensed Cavendish’s disdain for his months of hard work.
“Come on, Cavendish. This isn’t the Chelsea Flower show, it’s still early in the season and I did have to attend a meeting in Vienna. Do you have any idea how hard these people have worked to bring on their displays so early?” said an annoyed Victor, his baldhead glistening in sympathy with the humid conditions.
“No, I don’t
Hugo, nor do I care very much if I’m honest with you,” replied Cavendish, ignoring the Viennese jibe, as he unbuttoned his coat for the benefit of Victor, revealing the handgrip of the Colt Python.
“I take it that this isn’t a day off for you then, Cavendish. When an Untersucher starts flashing his thing one knows he means business.” Houghton showed his warrant card to the other exhibitors and the mingling visitors and gently steered them out in to the bright spring sunshine amid a chorus of rancour and insinuations. He stood guard at the entrance to prevent any unwelcome admissions.
“How can I help you, Marchel,” asked Victor calmly.
“I’d like you to tell me why you have compromised the auction and had the Romanov letters stolen.”
“You’ve got the wrong man, Marchel.”
“I do hate it when people won’t cooperate; it is such a waste of everyone’s time,” said Cavendish, deliberately sounding bored.
“Look, Marchel, Simeon gave me the heads-up that my name was mentioned during your talk, he said he thought I might be in the frame for something. Do you think I’d still be here if I had done something wrong? I would hardly want to have a confrontation with an evil bastard like you, would I?”
Victor’s cool and calm demeanour and the succinctness of his delivery was unsettling Cavendish. The inquisitor suddenly began to doubt his own conviction, Victor may have twitched nervously, but people were supposed to be scared of Untersuchers, after all, that was the whole point of myth and legend. Maybe his burning desire to indict Victor had clouded his judgement.
Houghton’s mobile rang. Both Cavendish and Victor watched Houghton as he took the call, their altercation put on hold as Houghton claimed their attention. When the call ended, Houghton anxiously beckoned Cavendish to join him and spoke quietly with him by the marquee entrance.
“SOCO results from Wells. Found a second set of non-eliminated fingerprints. Also found traces of sexual activity downstairs.”
“Spelman?” asked Cavendish, voicing a suppressed possibility that he did not wish to consider.
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