The Chalon Heads (8 page)
Later, after he had served their meals, Tomaso returned with a printout of the Starlings’ account. ‘As I said, the last time she was here was the fifteenth of June.’
Brock looked at the document. ‘Fine, thanks.’
Tomaso hesitated. ‘There was one time she came here with someone, a man.’
‘Oh, yes?’
He saw he had their full attention. ‘Not a young man. Middle-aged. Not very . . . smart.’
‘When was this?’
‘Maybe a year ago.’
‘Did she say anything to you about him? It must have seemed odd.’
‘She was joyful, I remember. Very happy. He seemed very uncomfortable. He didn’t belong in a place like this, I can tell you.’
‘She didn’t introduce you? Mention a name?’
‘I don’t think so.’
At the end of the meal, as he served them their coffee, Tomaso spoke again to Brock. ‘Is right? Eva is really missing?’
‘Yes, Tomaso. She really is. Is there something else you can tell us?’
The waiter looked unhappy. ‘Do you know about her phone?’
‘Her phone?’
‘Her mobile. She leaves it with us, when she is away from London. Yesterday a man called to collect it. He said he was her friend.’
‘When was this, Tomaso?’ Brock said quietly.
‘Yesterday lunch-time. I wasn’t here. One of the other guys gave it to him.’
‘Is he here now?’
Tomaso nodded.
‘All right,’ Brock said. ‘We’d like to talk to him.’
When the waiter had gone, Kathy said, ‘Starling said she doesn’t have a mobile.’
‘I know,’ Brock said. ‘But can you imagine a girl like Eva without a phone in her bag?’
Tomaso returned with a younger man, the same dark southern-Italian looks. He spoke little English, and Tomaso acted as interpreter.
‘This is Massimiliano. He works in the kitchen. He says the man was middle-aged, English. He was coming out of the toilet at the back, and he stopped by the door to the kitchen and spoke directly to Massimiliano. He had a little Italian, and used sign language as well. Massimiliano told him he must talk to one of the others, but the man was in a hurry, and the restaurant was busy. He knew where Signora Starling’s phone was, behind the little bar in the corner there, and he said he would help himself. Massimiliano didn’t object.’
Tomaso stared balefully at the other man, who looked sulky and unrepentant.
‘Could it have been Mr Starling, Tomaso?’ Brock asked.
‘I don’t think so, sir.’ Tomaso looked very uneasy. ‘Mr Starling doesn’t know about the phone. Eva says it’s her little secret. That’s why she leaves it here. She says he doesn’t like her to have a mobile, because of her health.’
‘Her health?’
‘Yes, you know . . . the electric waves.’
‘All the same, describe Mr Starling to Massimiliano, will you? Just to be sure.’
They watched him talking rapidly to the cook. Massimiliano’s eyes widened and he shook his head and said something.
‘Not Chinese,’ Tomaso said. He spoke some more to the cook, then again to Brock, lips pursed with frustration. ‘He has no description besides this. He didn’t take notice. He was too busy. His mind was full with his sauces.’
When they had gone, Desai suggested, ‘A boyfriend?’
‘Maybe,’ Brock grunted. ‘It certainly seems she had her little secrets. The question is, were they lethal?’
‘Lethal?’
‘If she was being a bad girl, and Sammy couldn’t cope with it . . .’
‘You think he’s killed her?’ Desai was fascinated. ‘And staged the kidnapping business?’
‘Well, it is very stagy, isn’t it? That business of contacting us through Cabot’s, and the way we’re brought in when two out of three messages have been delivered. All seems a bit like a script someone’s prepared for us. I’ve already experienced one of Sammy’s surprising little scripts, and I don’t fancy taking part in another.’
‘That’s what White suggested to me,’ Kathy said. ‘That Sammy might be behind it.’
‘Did he? Well—but you have other ideas, Kathy? From your questions to Sammy about the stamps on the notes?’
‘It was the business of these valuable stamps being ruined. What was the point? Then I thought that they must have been sent by someone who knew Sammy was obsessed by stamps, but didn’t themselves know or care about them. It was like a gesture designed to get under his skin. I thought it might be the sort of thing that an angry wife might do.’
‘Oh, I like that,’ Desai smiled. Brock conceded a nod.
‘And Sammy had thought of this too,’ Kathy went on. ‘When I pressed him, he acknowledged that he’d checked to see if they were his own stamps.’
‘Well,’ Brock said, ‘if you’re right she’s alive, if I’m right she’s dead. Let’s hope you’re right, Kathy. Ah, the bill . . .’
T
hey had arranged for Sammy Starling’s mail to be intercepted. He drove up from Farnham early the following morning, Friday the eleventh, and was sitting in the conference room at Queen Anne’s Gate at six a.m. when a messenger arrived with an envelope addressed identically to the first two. Apart from Brock and Kathy, Leon Desai was there with an expert from the Questioned Documents Section of the Physical Sciences Division of the Metropolitan Police Forensic Science Laboratory, which deals with counterfeiting, handwriting analysis, typewriter identification and other matters relating to the analysis of documents. The expert, Bert Freedman, took charge of the letter, briefly examining the exterior with a magnifying lens before carefully slicing open the envelope and drawing out the note from inside.
There was the expected fourpence blue head of the young Queen Victoria, the stamp this time cut into four pieces. Beneath it, the message read,
EVA’S PRICE IS LOT 15
CABOT’S COMMONWEALTH AUCTION.
BUY IT.
HAND-OVER INSTRUCTIONS
ON YOUR MOBILE 4.00 P.M. SATURDAY
Starling was very pale as he read and reread it. Then he nodded to himself, as if this was to be expected, and raised a glass of water to his lips, hand trembling.
‘That’s the auction we saw advertised yesterday at Cabot’s, is it, Sammy?’ Brock asked softly, and Starling swallowed and nodded.
‘We’ve got the catalogue somewhere. Do you know what lot fifteen is?’
Starling gave a little shake of his head, still speechless.
Kathy got to her feet. ‘I’ve got it in the office.’
A minute later she returned and placed the book in front of Brock. He had barely glanced at it since Melville had presented it to him. Now he looked at the illustration on the front cover to which Kathy was pointing. It was a photograph of a small envelope addressed in looping copperplate letters, with a black stamp of a Chalon Head design in the corner. Beneath the photograph was printed ‘Lot 15’.
He picked up the catalogue and turned over the pages until he found a description of the item, which he began to read out: ‘ “Canada Cover, 4 June 1851. Unique pre-issue 12d 1851, SG 4, on env. addressed to Mrs Sandford Fleming, 185 Bloor Street, Toronto; one neat strike scarce franking . . .”’
He stopped reading aloud as his eyes scanned on down the page until he said, ‘There’s an estimated value here . . .’ He hesitated then said, ‘£450,000. Can that be right?’
They all turned to Sammy Starling, who stared back at them, impassive.
‘Let’s get Melville here,’ Brock said. ‘We’ve got his home address. Get a car to pick him up.’
James Melville arrived an hour later in a state of some excitement—it wasn’t every day that one was roused from one’s bed and whisked off in a police car, waving like royalty at the people in number seventy-three who had observed it all from their bedroom window. He shook everyone’s hand effusively.
‘We’re getting breakfast sent in,’ Brock said. ‘What can we get you? Croissants? Coffee?’
They settled down to business.
‘I really didn’t expect to hear from you again so soon, Chief Inspector,’ Melville said. ‘Have things come to a head?’ He looked with concern at Starling, who gave no reaction, his attention seemingly turned in upon himself.
‘The third note has arrived, and it involves your company, Mr Melville. I’d like to record your comments, if you don’t mind?’
‘Oh, no, certainly.’
‘Let’s just establish who you are.’ Brock reached forward, pressed the switch on the recorder and made some introductory remarks. ‘Now, you are the general manager of Cabot’s, is that right?’
‘Not quite. I am Cabot’s manager, Early British and Colonies.’
‘Are you in charge of the auction that starts tomorrow?’
‘Our senior auctioneer, Christopher Conway, will be conducting the auctions, but much of the material will come through my department. The event is spread over three days, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, with British Commonwealth stamps on Saturday, British only on Monday, and foreign on Tuesday. It is predominantly an auction of rare and classic stamps, so the first two days are essentially my responsibility. Our manager, Foreign, is running the third day.’
‘I see. Well, we have a problem that we would like to discuss with you, in confidence, of course.’
‘Of course.’ Melville took out a pair of glasses as Brock showed him the third note, read it quickly and then exploded, ‘But that’s utterly preposterous! Good heavens, Mr Starling, what can I say? I’m devastated!’
‘There are a number of things I don’t understand about this, Mr Melville,’ Brock went on. ‘Perhaps you could help us. First, tell us about lot fifteen.’
‘Oh, my goodness! Lot fifteen!’ Melville stared at him wide-eyed, then gazed in sympathy at Starling. ‘Lot fifteen, indeed!’
‘We’ve found the entry in the auction catalogue you gave us yesterday,’ Brock said. ‘What’s so special about it?’
‘You remember we spoke yesterday about the Chalon Head stamps, Chief Inspector? Such as the ones on the ransom notes. Well, this is the very first Chalon Head, from 1851. It is simply unique. Until nine months ago we didn’t even know it existed.’
‘And that’s significant?’
‘Oh, exceedingly.’
‘Could you give us a very brief summary of why that is? For the record?’
‘Well, now . . .’ Melville frowned, marshalling his thoughts. ‘The first adhesive postage stamp was issued eleven years before, in 1840. That was the famous British penny black, and it’s hard to imagine now what a radical invention it was, a uniform rate national postal system, prepaid by means of an adhesive token, which was cut off a sheet with scissors—later they added perforations for ease of tearing—and stuck to the letter. Since no other country had such a system, there was no need to put the name of the country on the stamp, which is why British stamps to this day are the only ones without the country’s name on them. But they do have the monarch’s head, and that goes right back to the penny black. The design of that stamp was based on a side-profile portrait of Queen Victoria, which was engraved by William Wyon for a medallion struck when Victoria came to the throne in 1837.
‘Now in that same year the artist Alfred Edward Chalon also made a portrait of the young Queen. He sketched her standing in her robes of state on the grand staircase of the House of Lords on the occasion of her first visit there, and from this sketch he painted three versions of a full-length portrait. One went to the Queen herself, another to the King of Prussia, and the third to the King of Portugal.’
‘Portugal?’ Brock said, glancing at Starling, who appeared not to hear. ‘That’s interesting. And that portrait was the basis of the Chalon Head stamps?’
‘That’s right. Instead of a profile portrait like the Wyon penny black design, it shows, as you know, the Queen’s head and shoulders almost frontally as she turns to view something off to her right. It was never used for a British stamp, but as colonies around the Empire began to bring out their own stamp designs, the Chalon portrait proved to be a favourite with a number of them. In all, eleven colonies produced Chalon stamps, beginning with Canada and Nova Scotia in 1851.
‘The Canadian post offices were part of the British system until that year, when they first issued their own stamps—the threepence beaver design, sixpence portrait of Prince Albert, and twelvepence Chalon Head of Queen Victoria. These new stamps were designed by a young Scotsman who had emigrated to Canada a few years before. He went on to become chief engineer to the Dominion government, and responsible for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. And his name was Sandford Fleming.
‘And so now we arrive at lot fifteen. Here is our young Sandford Fleming, temporarily separated from his wife, he in Montreal, she in Toronto. It is her birthday. He decides to send her a letter, using a first print from the first plate of his new high-value stamp. We have the letter, dated the fourth of June 1851. But note this . . .’ Melville leaned forward to emphasise his point. ‘The twelvepence black was not released for public use until the fourteenth of June. And, moreover, the stamp that was then released was different from the one Fleming had sent to his wife ten days before. The principal difference was in the corner numbers, which in his version, as you can see in the catalogue picture, were black figures on a white ground, like the corner letters in the British penny black. But in the final version, which came into general circulation on the fourteenth of June, they were reversed to white figures on black ground.’ Melville sat back, eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘So there you have it, the sole example of a stamp which no one knew existed
and
on a cover addressed by its designer, himself a notable historical figure. The first Chalon Head!’
There was a moment’s silence as they waited to see if he had finished. Then the document expert, Bert Freedman, rubbed his hand across his bald head and said, ‘Fascinating.’
‘Have I misread this bit here in the catalogue, Mr Melville?’ Brock asked. ‘The estimated value. It looks like £450,000.’
‘That’s right, though really it’s impossible for us to put an accurate figure on it because it is absolutely unique. Ever since its discovery there has been tremendous interest— from Canadian collectors especially, of course, but also right around the globe. Undoubtedly it will attract keen bidding, possibly a record sum.’
‘Do stamps fetch that kind of figure?’
