Death of an Elgin Marble (23 page)

‘Tell them to sit tight and wait for news,’ replied the Inspector.

‘You’ve got men in the lobby, haven’t you?’ said Powerscourt. ‘And all across the ground floor? Charging downstairs like the Light Brigade at Balaclava won’t do any good. The blackmailer will take to his heels and run.’

Down below the ritual pavane continued on the pavement outside the Ritz. Taxis would draw up. The porters would rush forward to shelter the guests under their umbrellas. Distinguished visitors would receive an even more obsequious greeting from the Head Porter. People leaving the hotel would be escorted to the waiting taxis or, occasionally, lent an umbrella from the supply held for the purpose in a stand behind the double doors that led into the great entrance hall. Staring down, Powerscourt counted nine Ritz lions on top of the umbrellas dancing about in the half-light. The rain was still spluttering onto the pavement by the arcade and running down the gutters, discreetly tucked into the facade of the building.

At seven thirty-five, according to the later testimony of the porters, a middle-aged man of average height, wearing a dark overcoat and a hat with a very wide brim, made his way out of the hotel and into a passing taxi. The driver, one of the porters reported, seemed to be expecting him. Another man was just visible on the back seat. There was a brief greeting and the taxi drove away. Behind it a black hearse appeared to be having some difficulty. The steering seemed to have gone awry. The vehicle slewed across the road and came to a halt at an angle of forty-five degrees across Piccadilly. A bus, following behind, could not get past. The driver of the hearse climbed out of his seat and ran into the hotel, looking for assistance. Black smoke began to ooze out from the engine, as if some serious mechanical problem was under way. Behind the bus, other drivers and other buses began hooting their horns. After a couple of minutes the traffic jam extended right back to Piccadilly Circus with tributary blockages in the side streets leading onto the main thoroughfare. Further up on the opposite side towards Piccadilly Circus, the Royal Academy, packed with masterpieces of British art, could only watch as the seizure gradually spread to the other side of the street.

It was many hours later in Markham Square before Powerscourt and Inspector Kingsley understood what had happened. The porters were only asked to report on what they had seen at ten o’clock.

‘I should have seen it coming, Inspector! God knows, I’ve planned enough engagements where the trick was to attack from the direction the enemy least expected.’

‘You’ve got to hand it to the blackmailer, I suppose,’ admitted the Inspector. ‘He had us all looking the wrong way. We thought Ragg would disappear into the hotel, like a rabbit down a hole, and we could catch them in flagrante, as it were. Instead he walks out of the front door and into the taxi he must have sent to collect Ragg. All our plans went up in smoke. Plain clothes men disguised as hotel guests on every floor, waste of time! Police waiters, police footmen, police sommeliers, useless and redundant every one! Half the cars and the cyclists stuck in the traffic jam! Why didn’t we think it might all work the other way?’

‘You mustn’t reproach yourself. I’m as much to blame as you are.’ Powerscourt poured the Inspector another glass of whisky. ‘I don’t suppose your people have told you any news about Ragg? Is he all right, that sort of thing?’

‘Sorry. I should have told you. He didn’t go back to the Ritz. He didn’t go back to the museum. A taxi dropped him off at home shortly after nine o’clock. My man on duty at the house said that there seemed to be a second man in the cab, travelling with Ragg.’ Inspector Kingsley checked his notebook. ‘Just one thing about the passenger. Nondescript sort of fellow, apparently. Took his hat off as Ragg was getting out. My man thinks, but he’s not sure because of the light and the rain, that the fellow was completely bald.’

‘The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for you, Prime Minister.’

Sir Edward Henry, Britain’s most senior policeman, was trying hard to conceal his irritation. He was not cross with the Prime Minister or his Government. He was cross with his own subordinates and most of all with himself for not keeping a tighter watch on events. Kingsley’s behaviour he could not condone but the man was young, with a brilliant track record and a reputation as one of the most original detectives in the Force. That was why he had been assigned to the British Museum case in the first place. But the Head of Scotland Yard? What had the man been thinking of? He might not have given his blessing to the Piccadilly operation, but he had not forbidden it and he had not reported it upwards as he was duty bound to do. In a lifetime dealing with the maintenance of rules, of drawing up rules for the behaviour of his men, of suggesting or advising on rules or laws for regulating the behaviour of the general public, Sir Edward had always been sceptical about complete success in these difficult areas. Rules and laws were all very well, he had once told a conference of chief constables, but human frailty would always get through in the end.

The Prime Minister smiled at the policeman. Coffee and biscuits were being served.

‘You asked to see me, Sir Edward, on a matter of great urgency. How can I help?’

‘The matter is delicate, Prime Minister. It has to do with the theft of the Caryatid from the British Museum. I believe you know some of the details of the case?’

‘That is correct. I have been informed about the matter.’

Sir Edward Henry had a reputation for blunt speaking when he felt it was appropriate. He had always maintained in domestic negotiations with his wife that there were times when it was better to run the risk of offending the person you were speaking to, rather than dodging the issue and hiding in the long grass. This was such a time.

‘Forgive me if I have been misinformed, Prime Minister—’ there was no hostility in his voice at all ‘—but I was given to understand that you and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given your blessing to some preposterous scheme to pay blackmail to secure the return of the British Museum Caryatid. Is that true?’

‘What a lot of trouble that elegant young woman has caused us all! It might have been better if Lord Elgin had left her where she was. Don’t you think so? Yes, you are quite right, Commissioner. The Chancellor and I did come to such an understanding, let me call it that.’

‘I’m sorry, Prime Minister, forgive me, but I believe that was the wrong decision.’

‘You may be right, of course you may.’ The Prime Minister was famed for his ability to disarm his critics. ‘If I can be allowed to speak off the record, as it were, and for your ears only, it was a political calculation. Leave things as they are and the Caryatid may never be returned. God alone knows where the wretched statue is now. But it would be a continual reproach to this administration that prides itself on keeping a firm grip on questions of law and order, as the wretched newspapers keep referring to it. How can the electors feel safe in their beds when the Government cannot even recover a Greek statue seven and a half feet tall? If, on the other hand, the statue were recovered, then the question of how the return was effected will be drowned out in the general rejoicing. Nobody is going to quibble once she is back on her plinth or whatever she stands on in the British Museum. By the way, Commissioner, I have not yet been informed what happened when Deputy Director Ragg had his meeting yesterday evening. I believe you may have some news on that?’

‘I have very little to report, Prime Minister. The two men met. They managed to avoid my officers who were disguised as hotel guests and hotel staff in the Ritz Hotel. Both are safe and well. I have, as yet, no knowledge of what was said. Deputy Director Ragg is having a meeting with my inspector early this afternoon. But let me come to the point, Prime Minister. As the senior policeman in the capital, I am asking you to take steps to ensure that the discussions about paying a ransom are closed down, and that there will be no more meetings like the one last night.’

‘That is rather a lot to ask for all in one go, Commissioner. Might I ask why?’

‘Of course, Prime Minister. We have had a policy in the force for some years now of never paying blackmail. Let me explain. We believe – and the experience of some other European countries bears me out here – that paying blackmail becomes like a virus. Once you start, it is very hard to stop. Consider, if you would, the likely reaction in the criminal fraternity to the news that the return of the Caryatid was secured for £100,000. The thieves who traffic in these kinds of crime are not stupid, not by any means. Word will leak out, it always does. Soon they will have a sort of stock exchange in their minds of the monies the authorities are likely to pay out to redeem some work of art or public figure they may have kidnapped for ransom. Fifteen thousand pounds for a Constable? Forty thousand for a Raphael? Fifty for a Leonardo? Eighty for a real duchess? The National Gallery will be denuded of masterpieces; not all at once for that would bring the prices down, but over time. One a year, perhaps? The knowledge may spread lower down the ranks of the criminal fraternity. Robbery could become a popular pastime, not because the thieves want the furniture or the precious stones, but because they know they can get ready cash to hand it back. You could end up, Prime Minister, having to pay to have your stolen spoons returned.’

‘Surely it cannot be as bad as that?’

‘I exaggerate, of course, but only to make the point. Once you start paying up for blackmail the road is slippery, the path treacherous. Who knows where it may lead? Refuse to pay and the thieves may still steal – what else are they there for, after all – but they will not think it worth their while to go in for blackmail.’

‘Are you sure that it would become known in the criminal fraternity that we had paid a ransom? What happens if the whole business is conducted through an intermediary, somebody whose name neither you nor I need ever know of? Surely that would meet your objections?’

‘My objections, Prime Minister, are to do with the paying of blackmail. Whether it is paid by the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Garter King of Arms or the Archbishop of Canterbury is immaterial. The results will be the same.’

‘I see,’ said the Prime Minister. ‘I am most grateful to you for bringing the matter to my attention. I shall consult with colleagues and let you know what we have decided.’

Instant defeat, instant capitulation, the Prime Minister had decided, would never do. It would be like giving in to the blackmailers. He would disguise his retreat behind the matador’s cloak of consultation with his Cabinet. Not that he had any intention of speaking to a single one of them.

‘Of course, Prime Minister, I am most grateful for your time.’ The Commissioner had played this game often enough to know that an orderly retreat was the most likely course to bring success. Further argument would be futile. He did, however, have one last card to play.

‘If I could just make one final point, Prime Minister. I would remind you that Deputy Director Ragg is due to meet my Inspector immediately after lunch.’

‘Of course, my dear Commissioner. I haven’t forgotten.’

The Headmaster thought his colleague looked quite peaceful. He had heard the details of Carwyn Jones’s death from the police and shuddered. As the attendant in the hospital morgue began to pull back the sheet he thought he was going to be sick. But the face he saw was not the battered and bloodied wreck he expected. Somebody must have cleaned him up. Thank God for that, the Headmaster said to himself.

‘Yes.’ He nodded to the senior policeman. ‘Yes, that’s Carwyn Jones. I’d know him anywhere.’

Illtyd Williams walked slowly back to his school. He had been a teacher and then head teacher here for nearly forty years. The nearest he had come to violence in all his time there did not have to do with his pupils. The violence came from the terrible accidents at the mines further down the valley where so many of his children had uncles and cousins working. Illtyd could still see the faces of the women standing at the pithead, waiting to see if their man would be the next body brought up to the surface from the killer coal hundreds of feet below.

He knew there was a letter waiting for him in his office. Mrs John the cleaning lady had told him. She also informed him that there was no stamp on it, so it must have been hand delivered, and she thought she recognized the handwriting as that of his deceased colleague Carwyn Jones. Mrs John was waiting for him when he returned and hovering around with her best duster. He knew she was waiting to be told what was in the letter. Illtyd thanked her for her good work and showed her the door.

‘Dear Illtyd,’ the letter began. ‘I think I may have made a terrible mistake.’ Carwyn went on to describe his role in providing the cover story for the enormous coffin sent off to Bristol months before. He mentioned the rumours, of men working through the night in the lonely barn beside the entrance to the caves, of extra food being purchased by the undertaker when he had no guests staying in his house. He mentioned his suspicions after reading the London paper that events in the Brecon Beacons might have had something to do with the Caryatid stolen from the British Museum. He mentioned his financial problems, the rugby tickets sold, the roof in need of repair, the extra mouth or mouths soon to arrive, for his wife’s family had a long history of giving birth to twins. He confessed that he had written to the undertaker asking for more money to keep his mouth shut. He even mentioned his threat to go to his cousin the policeman in Ebbw Vale and tell him the whole story. Now, in his final sentence, he told his headmaster that he was due to meet the undertaker and a couple of his friends specially come from London to talk things over with him in the Green Dragon in an hour’s time.

There was no mention in the letter of what Carwyn expected him to do. Was he supposed to go immediately to the police and hand over the letter? The policeman who told him about Carwyn’s death had left little out of his account of the last minutes of his colleague’s life, the cigarette burns on the arms, the savage kicking, the stamping on his face. The policeman was sure the two men responsible had gone back to London. What if they came back? When he was a boy, like everybody else, he had been forced to play rugby. Being in the centre or out on the wing he didn’t mind so much. It was cold and sometimes you had to stop people getting past you. But then somebody had suggested putting him in the scrum as a second row forward. Illtyd could still remember his fear and the sheer discomfort of sticking your head into the gap between the faces of the front row, other forwards leaning into you from the side and the back, and pushing for all he was worth. Not long afterwards he gave up rugby altogether. He walked over to the window and stared out at the mountains beyond the playground. He thought of Carwyn in his happier days, tramping across the hills, climbing to the top of Cader Idris on a summer’s day and exulting in the view of Cardigan Bay stretched out beneath them like an enormous map. He thought of the broken body down in the hospital morgue, kicked to death by killers from another country. He shivered slightly. For the moment, he decided, he would do nothing. He would keep quiet about the letter. He wasn’t even going to tell his wife or their children. Maybe, he said to himself, things will be clearer after the inquest.