Anything For a Quiet Life (7 page)

“It’s much too late to go to bed,” said Maggs. “So why don’t you come in and have a hot cup of tea, with maybe a drop of something in it?”

This seemed to everyone to be an excellent idea. Two men were left on guard, and the rest came down to the farmhouse, where the fire was revived, a kettle put on, and bottles produced.

“Do you think,” said Jonas, “that you could now tell us what it’s all about, and what’s been dug up? Not, I gather, the abbey treasure.”

“May be more valuable than that,” said Anderson. “I’m not too sure what the price of gold is today, but those six boxes are crammed with gold bars.”

Light began to dawn. Jonas said, “Of course. The Heathrow robbery.”

“Lifted from the bullion store fifteen months ago. We were sure it was the Catlins, but we couldn’t pin it to them, for there was no trace of the loot. We kept them under surveillance for months after the robbery. They were laughing. They knew they were safe. I’d surmise they came off the motorway, at the junction north of here, drove along until they saw a nice thick hedge, tunnelled through it, and buried the stuff. Lucky for them the bull was in the lower field at the time. Then all they had to do was wait until the heat was off. Only—”

“Only,” said Jonas, and the full humour of it was beginning to strike him, “suddenly they read in the papers that the place they’ve buried it is about to be given a going-over by a gang of amateur treasure seekers.”

“Aye. They had to get it out. That bull stopped them the first time. This time they’d got no option. They may have suspected it was a trap, and they came prepared for trouble.”

“So why didn’t they put up a fight?”

Anderson thought about it. He said, “That robbery was a brutal job. They crippled three of the security guards. One of them’s in hospital still. I expect they thought that if they started anything we’d shoot their legs off.”

“And would you have done?”

“That question,” said Anderson, in his dominie’s voice, “is what you might describe as academic.”

At first light they all made their way up to the Top Field. It was whilst the photographs were being taken that the treasure hunters arrived: a party of four men and two girls, equipped with metal detectors, and led by Mr Westall in person.

He looked with dismay at the open pit and the boxes beside it. He said, “I hope you’ve been very careful when removing whatever you’ve found. Old artefacts can so easily be damaged when handled by unskilled persons.”

Anderson said to Jonas, “I think you’d better explain it to him, sir.”

“I’ll try,” said Jonas.

It took ten minutes. Five of the treasure seekers listened to him. One of the girls had wandered off on her own. A police van had been run up on the path between the fields and the last of the bullion was being manhandled on to it when she gave them a hail. She said, “I’ve never used one of these things before, but it seems to be getting excited.”

Attention was switched from the open pit to the place where she was standing at the bottom of the field. The other girl said, “I expect you’re using it wrong.” Mr Westall walked over, used his own instrument, and said, “No, there’s definitely something here.”

He had taken pegs from his pocket and was marking out an oblong site. “Perhaps we could borrow those spades?”

The police seemed keener on helping than on giving up the spades, and the amateur treasure hunters soon became glad of professional assistance. If there was anything there it was buried deep.

From time to time Mr Westall encouraged them by announcing a strengthening of the signals. It was when they were fully four feet down and the lifting of the earth was becoming a real physical effort that they heard what they had all been waiting for. A spade struck on something that was neither earth nor stone.

Mr Westall jumped into the pit with a flurry of anxious advice. “Hands only, now,” he said. “No more spades. We must use hands.”

Slowly the object in the pit took shape. They could see that it was a box, perhaps six feet long and two feet wide, formed of stout oak planks bound with strips of iron. The wood had stood up to the passage of time better than the metal which was rusted and fragile.

“Two of you at each end. Lift it very gently. That’s it.”

The box was laid on the edge of the pit. Mr Westall looked at it proudly. He said, “Really, we shouldn’t try to open it here. It ought to be taken to a place where it can be dealt with properly.”

He realised, however, that the feeling of the meeting was against him.

“Well, then,” he said, “we might just look. But carefully. I beg of you.”

The edge of a spade was placed under one of the planks and the top lifted like a lid. Whatever it was inside was covered with several thicknesses of leather. As Mr Westall peeled them off, everyone leaned forward. The police photographers had their cameras focused. What lay in the box was a surprise to all of them.

It was an iron crucifix.

Staring down at it Jonas was aware he was looking at a miracle, created by a master-craftsman, a forgotten genius of the Middle Ages. The face of the man on the cross was in no way formalised. It was the face of a real person. Or of two persons in one: the divine compassion of the man who had suffered the agonies of crucifixion and had forgiven his tormentors; the strength of the man who had died on the rack rather than reveal where his greatest treasure was hidden.

Mrs Grandfield was standing at the window of her breakfast room. The sun was shining from the blue sky of a midsummer day. It was cheering the hearts of the holidaymakers who crowded into Shackleton-on-Sea during the summer months. They had been disappointed by the bad weather of the previous week; and had now hurried to the beach, the parents to doze in deckchairs, the children to build sandcastles or waste their money at the row of stalls which lined the Esplanade.

All these people were happy. Mrs Grandfield was not happy.

The pleasures of the crowd meant nothing to her. Her house, Old Priory Lodge, with its ten acres of garden, its paddock and its meadows, lay nearly a mile from the town on a little-used side road. From where she stood she had a bird’s-eye view of her domain. She could hear the puttering as their gardener-chauffeur, Clegg, drove his motor mower across their smooth lawn. She could see the well-stocked flowerbeds and the neat yew hedge at the foot of the lawn. To right and to left lay her property. Only over the hedge, where the side road moved away from the curve of the hill, was an acre of common land. On it, only too clearly visible, was the cause of her discontent.

Six gypsy caravans.

To someone less personally involved the sight might have seemed attractive. They were motor caravans, but their bodywork had been built in the old-fashioned gypsy style with windows and chimneys and, in two cases, an open balcony at the back. Some almost naked toddlers were playing a game which seemed to consist of climbing up and falling off the front steps of one of the larger caravans. In the background two older boys were tinkering with an ancient motor car.

“Probably stolen,” said Mrs Grandfield.

Charles Grandfield who had come into the room at that moment, said, “What’s that, Nora? Stolen? What’s been stolen?”

“I was remarking that the car those two gypsy oafs were dismantling had probably been stolen.”

“What makes you think that?”

“They’re all thieves and liars. A feckless, shiftless crew, they’ve got no right to be here.”

“It’s common land, my dear.”

“How do they know that? Mr Porter once told me that any unfenced land beside the highway belongs to the corporation. Since you’re chairman of the council, doesn’t that mean it belongs to you?”

“I’m not quite clear about that,” said Mr Grandfield. “But since it seems to worry you I’m going to find out. I’m seeing Porter this morning, and I’m going to have a word with the Chief Superintendent. There may be some local by-law they’re infringing.”

“I’m sure that Whaley will be helpful if he can. They’re like rats. Once you let them in they’re all over the place. Two of the older boys spend all their time on the beach handing out deckchairs to old ladies, who are probably afraid not to tip them. And the old creature who seems to run the gang has a booth on the front and pretends to tell fortunes.”

“The Queen of the Gypsies,” said Mr Grandfield with a slight smile. “Yes, I have heard about her.”

“In the old days she’d have been tried as a witch and burnt at the stake.”

“We can’t quite do that sort of thing now. But don’t worry, you may find that the law has a card or two up its sleeve.”

When he reached the police station he found that Chief Superintendent Whaley was away on leave, and he had to deal with Detective Superintendent Queen whom he found to be less immediately co-operative. He sympathised with Mr Grandfield’s feelings, but pointed out that until the gypsies broke the law they were hardly a police problem.

“Actually,” he said, “they seem to be quiet sort of folk. We haven’t had any complaints from people in the town.”

“What about those two boys, who wander about on the beach extracting money from people for handing out deckchairs – which are corporation property, anyway?”

“Oh – you mean Ben and Billy,” said Queen. “Do you know, when my wife took the kids down to the beach the other day she was so pleased with the new arrangement that she gave – Billy, I think it was; you can hardly tell them apart – five pence over and above the hire fee.”

“For what?”

“For fetching her deckchair from the store and setting it up where she wanted. And, I rather suspect, for smiling whilst he did it. The old arrangement was that you had to fetch it yourself from that old storekeeper, who looked as if every day was a wet Monday.”

“I reckon those two boys are potential dangers.”

“Well, we’ll keep an eye on them,” said Queen. “If they step out of line you can be sure we’ll clamp down. But in my view the gypsies are a lot less objectionable than that terrible funfair which turns up in August with a merry-go-round and steam whistles and makes the whole place almost unliveable in for a whole month. If you could use your influence on the council to get
them
refused a licence you really would be doing us a good turn. Some of the stallholders who come with them are very doubtful citizens.”

This was a skilful, and successful, effort to divert Mr Grandfield from his immediate grievance. He said, “I know what you mean, but it’s not an easy problem. The council’s split on it. Agreed the fair’s a nuisance, but it brings in a lot of trade, and that makes the commercial lobby on the council support it. However, I’ll think about it.”

A steam whistle a mile away was a lot less objectionable to Mr Grandfield than gypsy caravans a hundred yards from his dining room window.

Having reached an age when most solicitors would have been considering retirement Jonas Pickett liked to take things easily. His practice in Shackleton had grown considerably during the twelve months he had been there, but he found that he could usually deal with his mail by mid-morning. He then devoted half an hour to coffee and gossip with whichever members of his staff had time to spare. That morning it was his secretary, who seemed to be suffering from a suppressed joke.

She said, “You’ll never believe it, but Sam’s had his fortune told.”

Jonas said, “You mean Sam actually paid a visit to the Gypsy Queen?”

“Paid it, and paid for it. He’s a complete convert.”

“What did she tell him?”

“She read his past and his future in a milky glass globe. She said that she saw him, in his youth, performing prodigious feats of strength on different fairgrounds.”

“Since she has herself been following the same circuit for many years she’d be likely to know about that.”

“You mustn’t start to sow doubts in Sam’s mind. If you do, he won’t have faith in her predictions for his future.”

“Which were?”

“She said that he is going to be lucky in love.”

Jonas guffawed. “What an admirable prediction. It could mean anything. Good technique, though. Let’s persuade Sabrina to visit the gypsy’s lair.”

The fact that he referred to his partner by her first name was an indication that their conversation was informal. In the same way, Claire called Mr Pickett ‘Jonas’ when they were alone, but ‘Mr Pickett’ when third parties were present. By such conventions the decencies were preserved.

“If you think she’s a fraud,” said Claire, “you ought to visit her yourself. Then you could expose her.”

“There are several excellent reasons for my not doing so.”

Jonas ticked off the reasons on his fingers as though Claire was an opponent in court who had put forward a weak argument. “First, I don’t think she’s a fraud. I think she’s a very astute performer. Secondly, if you attempted to assert that the sort of vague predictions she makes rendered her subject to the law you’d have to prosecute all the so-called astrological experts who daily fill the less reputable organs of the press with their nonsense. Thirdly, and finally, I could not, myself, consider taking any action against her since she is my client.”

“If she’s your client, why don’t I know about it?” said Claire indignantly.

“Because it all happened when you were up in London at the end of May. She came to see me, because she wanted to be quite sure, before they moved their caravans on to this particular piece of ground, that they couldn’t be turned off it. I wish all my clients were as prudent. Most of them consult me
after
they’ve done something stupid.”

“And they can’t be?”

“Not as long as they behave themselves. Old Priory Lodge belonged to Colonel Croxton. It had been in his family for generations. Grandfield was his nephew, or some such relation. He got it because both Croxton’s sons were killed in the war. Just before he died the Colonel dedicated this little patch of land by the road to the corporation on condition that they made it available to travellers. I got a copy of the deed from the town clerk. It was drawn up by Croxton’s London solicitor, Marcus Apperly. Very competent man. Must be retired or dead by now.”