Denied to all but Ghosts (33 page)

“I’ve no idea,” was his honest reply as he
emptied his wine glass and poured himself another generous measure
of Houghton’s wine. “And what the hell are you doing here?” he
asked provocatively.

“I beg your pardon?” asked Blanch, unused to
being spoken to in such a forthright manner.

“I said, what are you doing here, not enough
crime for you to sort out in London or are the brown envelopes
thicker in Norfolk?” Beckett knew he was being deliberately
confrontational and did not really know why. His only rationale was
that it had been a shit evening and his nose was still sore from
Cavendish’s breakfast table punch. The day had started out with a
blazing row so it might as well end on one.

Blanch stood up in response to Beckett’s
jibe, yet having done so was unsure as to what she was actually
going to do. The whole evening had been nothing short of a
disaster, epitomising confusion and procrastination. She had never
before been involved in such a ridiculous investigation; it was
more like an old boy’s reunion than a police enquiry. Any
conversation regarding the case of the stolen sword and the
poisoning had been studiously avoided by her boss. She felt as if
something was going on that she had not been made aware of and when
this idiot photographer mentioned bungs, her worse fears were
confirmed, that her boss was on the take. It would certainly
explain a thing or two. She suddenly felt frightened, that she was
being involved in something that she detested.

When the two men returned from the garden,
they found only Blanch in the dining room.

“Where is Thomas?” Cavendish quickly asked
Blanch. She ignored the man who she considered represented a
vocation that she hated. She despised the gentleman sleuth, for she
had no time for amateurs.

“Blanch, are you okay?” asked Houghton.
Again, Blanch said nothing.

“Thomas!” shouted Cavendish; he desperately
needed Beckett’s reassuring presence. “Thomas!” he urgently
repeated his call. At length Beckett’s head appeared around the
open arched way that joined the dining room and lounge.

“Sorry, Marchel,” said a bleary voiced
Beckett, “I must have dozed off, it’s been a long day.” Cavendish
felt a ridiculous sense of relief knowing that he had found Thomas
Beckett.

At that moment, Cavendish’s mobile phone
shrilled importunately persuading the inquisitor to stare intently
towards the source of the strident summons. He was unused to
receiving random calls, for most incoming calls were scheduled.
Surely, Steinbeck would not be ringing now?

He reached for his mobile, lying upon the
dining table, noted the caller’s identity and pressed the answer
button.

“One moment if you please,” he said as he
walked hurriedly out through the door into the kitchen and left the
house via the small conservatory to take the call outside.

“Okay, go ahead,” said Cavendish as he sat on
a weathered concrete bench in a quiet spot at the top of the
garden. The darkness was all-enveloping as the clouds soared in
from the sea. A superstitious man would have taken little comfort
from the auguries in the firmament.

“Cavendish, it’s Simeon Goldstein. We have a
problem.”

“Hello Simeon, what sort of problem do you
have?” asked Cavendish, feigning a voice of calm indifference.

“Miles has gone missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yes, missing, you klutz. I’ve not seen him
for several days. There is another problem as well.”

“Go on,” asked Cavendish, all pretence at his
lack of concern now abandoned as he prepared himself for Simeon’s
news.

“The Romanov items are missing.”

“The Romanov items are missing?” repeated
Cavendish.

“What is wrong with you, are you deaf, you
stupid Nazi?”

“No Simeon, no on both counts,” he cared
little for Simeon’s taunts as he listened intently.

“The Romanov items are missing. You’d better
get here straight away.” Goldstein terminated the call.

Cavendish sat longer than he had intended in
the garden whilst he absorbed Simeon Goldstein’s news. ‘The Romanov
items are missing’. Marcel Cavendish suspected his ambitions were
teetering on the brink of collapse.

Cavendish returned quietly from the garden to
the house. No one paid any attention to him as he took his seat at
the dining table. He sat quietly for several minutes before
speaking.

“Would you join me in the garden please,
Thomas?” Beckett interpreted the request as a summons to the
headmaster’s office. He followed Cavendish sheepishly out into the
garden.

The Untersucher lit a cigarette and, ignoring
Beckett, looked skywards, attempting to locate any stars in the
breaks provided by the streaking clouds.

“There is a change of plan, Thomas,”
announced Cavendish solemnly. If Cavendish expected any reply from
Beckett then he was to be disappointed. “I’m going to have to leave
shortly to return to Bath.”

“You’re joking,” said Beckett, shocked by
what he heard, “why, what have I done now?”

“What have you done?” Cavendish ceased his
sky gazing and smiled at Beckett. “You have done absolutely
nothing. The phone call was from Simeon Goldstein. Miles is missing
along with the Romanov items.”

“I assume when you say Romanov”, Beckett made
the rabbit ears sign with both hands when referring to the name
Romanov; “you are referring to the Russian Tsar and his
family.”

“Indeed I am, Thomas, I certainly am,”
laboured Cavendish.

“But you never mentioned anything about
Russian items. I thought we were dealing with Anglo-Saxon stuff?”
asked Beckett cautiously, sensing his partners barely contained
angst. Cavendish drew heavily on his cigarette before
answering.

“When I was at Flash Seminary, when I first
arrived, a reference was made to special items in the auction. If
you remember, I asked Simeon about anything special when I shoved
my gun in his fat ugly face. He conceded as much. But Horst made no
mention of any Romanov items. Christ, do you know how much money
the Russians would pay for anything connected with the bloody
Romanovs!”

“Hundreds of pounds?” suggested Beckett
heedfully.

“Add a few more zeros,” snapped Cavendish. “I
have a horrible feeling that I have been duped. No, worse than
that, that I have been played for a fool.” Beckett could detect
Cavendish’s anger and fear in his voice.

“Hah, I thought I was so cool playing Spelman
along,” Cavendish began to take small strides around the garden,
waving his cigarette from side to side to emphasise his words,
“dangling the goodies in front of her and watching her take the
bait hook, line and whatever-bloody-else it is.”

“Sinker,” offered Beckett.

“Fuck sinker,” exploded Cavendish, “watching
the girl prostrate herself for a fancy bauble I had created to
catch a bigger salmon.”

“Just ‘fish’ would have sufficed.”

“Shit, shit, shit!” The flood of words
thereafter were unintelligible to Beckett as Cavendish exploded,
shouting in a concoction of German and French.

When Beckett was alone the next day, he
regretted the flippancy of his comments. He had not realised the
true consequences and implications of what Cavendish was telling
him. All in all, it had been an awful day. The problem for Beckett
was that tomorrow promised to be even worse.

The German calmed down the instant he saw
Houghton standing at the conservatory door.

“Is everything alright out here, guys?” asked
Houghton, the concern in his voice apparent even to Beckett.

“Fine, Josh,” answered Cavendish, reasserting
control of his emotions, “I’ll have a quick word with Thomas and be
back in to see you.” Houghton lingered a little longer to make sure
things had settled down before returning to his sergeant.

“He thinks we’ve had an argument,” observed
an amused Cavendish, “Josh is better than most, many people thought
I would put up with you for only a few days before you bored me and
I cast you to the wolves.” Beckett was stunned by Cavendish’s
pronouncement.

“What do you mean?” asked Beckett, devastated
by the statement.

“Thomas, I am a loner by reputation, I don’t
‘do’ the people thing.” Beckett was hurt; the day was going from
bad to worse. The Untersucher continued. “I haven’t got time to
explain to you now; I don’t pretend to understand myself what is
going on. All I know is that I have to act fast or else.”

“Or else what?” asked Beckett miserably.

“Or else it will be the Siebenbürgen for
me.”

“Eh?” asked Beckett, shaking his head.
Cavendish stared at his colleague.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Just do what you
think is right tomorrow, and before you ask, you’ll know what that
is when the time comes. Don’t worry about Josh and the sergeant,
they don’t know you like I do, do they?” By way of reassurance
Cavendish added, “you should hear what people say about me.”

Cavendish advanced slowly towards Beckett and
characteristically placed both hands on his shoulders, leant
forward and looked him in the eyes.

“Thomas, the next few days are going to be
very important. Whilst I’m not here you are my eyes and ears,
understand?” Beckett nodded; he began to feel sick in the pit of
his stomach. “When you confront Spelman and Slingsby in the
morning, make sure that Josh takes them to Flash Seminary, don’t
let that sergeant interfere, understand?” Beckett again nodded. “Be
strong for me, come on, I’ll fill Josh in on the situation.”

Beckett finally found his voice.

“I can tell you’re upset, Marchel, and I know
you are in a hurry, but what’s the big deal?” Cavendish removed his
hands from Beckett’s shoulders and resumed his vigil of the
sky.

“Alright, Thomas, just for you. You know the
sword creation was a feint to draw out the auction spoiler. We
surmised that the Good Doctor and her journalist were simple
intermediaries and we are using them to reach the real source of
the heresy. It now appears that whilst I have been seducing Spelman
and Slingsby, the perpetrator has been playing me.” Cavendish
smiled grimly, exaggerating the scar’s dominance of his features.
“I have been drawn away from the epicentre of his desires; whilst I
have been dabbling with fake swords, he has stolen the real star of
the show, the Romanov items. Hah, I can almost empathise with the
Good Doctor!”

“Why did he not just steal them outright,
without getting you involved?”

“That is an excellent question, but we can
assume that I come into the scheme of things somewhere. Stealing
the artefacts is one thing, discrediting me is something entirely
different.”

“Have you made any enemies?” asked Beckett
innocently. Cavendish grinned ruefully.

“You’d be better off using the antithesis, I
have certainly made enemies and unfortunately Untersuchers do not
make many friends either.”

“What about me?” Beckett asked forlornly.
Cavendish looked slowly down from the sky to the ground. “It would
be nice, Thomas, if you proved to be the exception to the rule.
Come on, it’s cold out here, let’s break the news of my imminent
departure to the others.”

It was regrettable that Marchel Cavendish had
to endure a five-hour drive from Norfolk to Bath in the early hours
of Wednesday morning without the company of Thomas Beckett. He
decided to travel down past Cambridge on the M11 to hit the M25 and
then take the M4 to Bath.

His mind replayed the events of the past
week. He put behind him the drugging of Beckett as being
unavoidable, yet found the episode unsettling despite his assumed
professional justification. Maybe he had unlocked the secret of
performing the Didier ruse- do not try to be clever or subtle, be
blatant and over the top.

He should not have been surprised at
Beckett’s aggression towards him following the drugging. However,
Beckett appeared to be more disappointed with Emily Spelman, which
he supposed was natural enough gauging by their apparent emotional
connection.

He had never told Beckett of how he had found
his drugged body in the hotel room. He had allowed Beckett to
assume that he had taken care of him and put him to bed. Cavendish
knew that it could only have been Emily, who had no doubt induced
his vomiting in an attempt to remove the poison from his system and
save him from the worse effects of the excessive dosage she had
administered. She had undressed him and put him to bed, remaining
with him much longer than was strictly necessary if she was simply
a thief. The whole thing was a very intimate act of which only
Cavendish and Emily were aware.

Perhaps he should have told Beckett of her
selfless actions but he decided to shield him from the knowledge.
He wanted to keep Emily Spelman in the opposition’s camp and did
not want his partner to be taken in any more than he already was by
the duplicitous woman. Anyway, he had his own ambitions for Dr
Spelman; he had resolved to integrate her into the firm. Beckett’s
take on the world was admirable, it may have been flawed but it
seemed remarkably uncomplicated to someone like Cavendish.

As the motorway miles mounted Cavendish sped
through the countryside of England, the M25 was as tediously quiet
as it was ever going to be at three o’clock this Wednesday morning.
The reason for his hatred of long trips alone, whether it was
driving or flying, was that his mind was trapped; there was no
escape or distraction from himself. As often happened, his mind
drifted back to memories of his childhood.

“
But why can’t I stay here and go to
school, Mummy?” Marchel was crying in the garden of his
Grandparent’s house, somewhere in the south of England on an
idyllic summer’s afternoon.