by Amy Myers
‘This is very erudite of you, Luke. It must be the orange juice speaking.’
‘Nonsense. King Arthur—’ he began, as Peter wheeled himself up to them. ‘We’re talking about your favourite subject,’ he said.
‘And that is? I can think of quite a few thousand.’
‘How about King Arthur to begin with?’
‘I’m more interested in Lance Venyon at present,’ Peter replied with dignity. He always had a keen sense of when he was being sent up.
‘Because his daughter thinks he might have been murdered?’ Georgia asked innocently.
Peter looked disappointed. ‘How did you know?’
‘Her son, Colin. Why does Elaine think he was murdered?’
‘She muttered darkly about various people wanting revenge.’
‘Scorned ladies?’
‘Possibly, if they were up to sailing boats, pushing people overboard and then swimming off into the blue leaving the dinghy on board.’
‘Where did the boat go down?’ Luke asked.
‘It didn’t. According to the vicar,’ Georgia said, ‘it was found drifting. Colin said there was no indication of a police investigation. I think it’s more likely that Lance was too vital a person for Mary to believe that fate has been so cruel as to take him away and so she came up with her own conspiracy theory.’
‘Possibly. Jago Priest might tell us,’ Peter suggested innocently. ‘We’ll try him.’
She might have known. Her father was already stampeding ahead, although, so far as she could see, with little cause. It was true her own instinct was prodding her onwards, but it was her job to take the cautious line. ‘Who is he?’
‘He was Lance’s chum during and just after the war years, and even owned this house for a while, though I gather he never lived here.’
Georgia was wary. She was being rushed and would be blowed if she’d pick up on this. ‘Try Jago for what, then?’
‘I’ve no idea, Georgia,’ he replied blandly. ‘Let’s find out.’
Chapter Two
Why on earth had she come, Georgia wondered. Marsh & Daughter were at that delicate stage of authors’ lives when one book is completed, and the next still a jumble of ideas. Usually she and Peter had a number of projects advancing together, until one stood out and demanded attention. This time the projects file had failed to oblige, and each document within it, or each page of notes (Peter insisted on paper backup), had a sheepish look about it, even defiant, as if challenging them to find anything at all interesting within it.
She had to admit that wasn’t the only reason she had decided to accompany Peter today. The early May weather was unexpectedly obliging after what seemed non-stop rain, but unfortunately she had no valid excuse for tackling the garden at Medlars while so close by Luke was immersed in his office panicking over his spring list.
‘Interesting,’ Peter commented, glancing at the house, as he manoeuvred himself into his wheelchair. ‘What do we expect from this?’
Georgia considered the neat but somewhat nondescript detached building set some way back from the lane behind high hedges and, from the glimpse through the gateway, shrouded with bushes too. Lewson Street was a hamlet near Faversham, at whose centre was a fine pub. Its houses and cottages were strung out along a long lane leading from a nearby church and back to the busy A2 road.
‘The jury’s out on this one,’ Georgia replied to Peter’s question cheerfully, as she rang the doorbell. An academic, perhaps in this green ivory tower?
The man who answered the door was too young to be Jago Priest; he could only be in his late forties. Tall, sturdily built, casually dressed, but smartly. No businessman this, yet no academic either, and any personal memories of Lance Venyon could only be those of a tiny child.
‘Mark Priest,’ he announced as he greeted them. He was weighing them up carefully, although not unwelcomingly, Georgia thought. ‘My father’s waiting for you. Come in.’ A makeshift ramp for Peter’s wheelchair had been laid to the doorstep, which won Mark some brownie points, and he took immediate charge of clearing the path for it to a room at the rear of the house.
‘Come in, come in. Make yourselves at home,’ boomed its occupant.
It was Jago Priest’s size that first struck Georgia. She had expected a frail man in his eighties. This man was certainly that age, but frail he was not. He was tall, still well built, with white hair, which was profuse though hardly rivalling the vicar’s mane, and a white beard to complement it. Where the vicar had been restrained, however, this man was jovial in the extreme. When she had telephoned, he had obviously been taken by surprise – not unnaturally considering that Lance Venyon had died well over forty years earlier. Now he exuded welcome, and his personality dominated the room.
Nevertheless the room, or rather its contents, were fighting back with a vengeance, and came a close second. Peter obviously thought the same for he announced approvingly: ‘This is somewhere I could feel at home.’
Jago laughed. ‘The precious life-blood of a master-spirit, as Milton said, eh? Books.’
That was an understatement. Apart from one framed photo of a striking-looking elderly lady, the books were the room. Hardly any wall space was to be seen: two of the walls were entirely hidden, the third grudgingly permitted a window, and the fourth hosted ancient maps. More books were heaped on the floor and were doing their best to encroach on the comfortable-looking chairs and desk, although there a brand-new computer seemed to be eyeing them so sternly that the flood was held at bay. A working room, and an active one, Georgia realized, despite Jago Priest’s age.
‘My little hobby,’ he explained chuckling.
For once lost for the right words, she could only nod weakly, because she had just realized what this collection was all about. Once again, she had run straight into Camelot. This wasn’t a higgledy-piggledy random selection of books; they all, so far as she could see, had to do with King Arthur, with deviations into early British history, Bronze Age, Roman, Celtic, and Anglo-Saxon. King Arthur reigned serenely over them all.
‘It takes some getting used to,’ Mark said gloomily, seeing her amazement. ‘Imagine growing up with this lot.’
‘You’re not an enthusiast?’
‘No,’ he grimaced. ‘I deal in facts, not myth.’
Jago didn’t seem put out at such betrayal by his son. ‘And what is myth and legend but history hiding behind a cloud?’
‘Would I be right in thinking,’ Peter asked tactfully, ‘that these books are divided more or less between the two?’
Jago turned to him. ‘I can see you have a discerning eye, Peter. This wall has mainly what one might call the Camelot story, the Arthurian story of the Middle Ages, best known through Malory’s fifteenth-century Le Morte D’Arthur, who drew of course from earlier sources, both French and British, many lost to us now. It is by courtesy of Chrétien de Troyes, writing three centuries earlier, that the Holy Grail stories became part of the Arthurian tradition.’
‘Hollywood fodder,’ muttered Mark.
‘And this,’ Jago lovingly touched another wall of books, ‘is where Mark and I agree. The historical side of the story. The old faithfuls, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Gildas, Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth—’
‘Still largely myth,’ Mark defended his corner.
‘My son takes the view,’ Jago joked, ‘that our ancestors got together one day and decided to invent a whole new king to fool posterity.’
This was clearly a battle that had raged for years, Georgia saw with amusement, but there seemed no animosity in it, merely a wariness of what the opponent might say next. The problem was: were they ever going to get Jago to talk about Lance Venyon?
‘Dad, your visitors are here to talk about that old friend of yours, not Arthur.’
‘Indeed yes, I must remember my manners. You must forgive me.’ Jago sat down in his chair, looking his full age. ‘Since my wife died two years ago –’ he glanced at the photograph – ‘I have little chance to indulge my enthusiasm
, and Mark and Cindy, my daughter, are usually my only outlets to sharpen what’s left of my wits.’
‘Was your wife a King Arthur enthusiast too?’ Georgia asked gently.
‘Indeed she was. She would say it was because her parents named her Jennifer, which, as you know, is a variant of Guinevere.’
Georgia began to sense even more the kind of upbringing Mark must have had in this overpoweringly Arthurian family. He caught her eye, and obviously read her thoughts.
‘I don’t live here,’ he explained straight-faced, ‘so I can take it in small doses.’
Nevertheless, he was clearly on guard and announced he would leave them to make some tea – couldn’t stand the strain, no doubt, and who could blame him, Georgia thought?
‘Don’t pity him.’ Jago returned to full vigour, when Mark had left them. ‘He pretends to be a doubter, but the mere fact that he tries to disprove my every word by rushing to the history books or the Internet suggests to me that secretly he’s as drawn to it as I am. I’ll lay a bet with you that when I’m gone this collection goes straight to Tunbridge Wells. That’s where Mark lives,’ he explained. ‘Jennifer and I lived there too when we first returned to England ten years ago. A good town for history, even if Arthur never drank its spa waters. My daughter, Cindy, is wise enough to keep aloof from our controversy, though I suspect she is more sympathetic to Arthurian history than she likes to let on, whereas the next generation, my dear Sam, is even more of an enthusiast than I am – if that’s possible.’
‘Perhaps Mark will get his evidence in due course. Our perspective on history can change,’ Peter pointed out. ‘With a period such as King Arthur’s in particular accepted facts can be turned on their head.’
‘Just what Lance would have said,’ Jago commented quietly.
At last. A chance to get the conversation on track. ‘You knew him from his childhood?’ Georgia asked.
‘No. We met during the war, the Second World War, I should say. We met in 1944. I was twenty-three and he, I think, slightly younger.’
‘Were you both in the army?’
‘Yes and no. We were in the SAS, the Special Air Service, which was formed in the desert campaign in 1942, but began to spread its wings later in the war. In early 1944 we were with the Partisans behind enemy lines in Italy, and later in Yugoslavia, as it was then called. We were living rough in the mountains a lot of the time which meant there was a lot of time for talking in between ops.’
‘About King Arthur?’ Peter asked to Georgia’s irritation. They needed to keep Jago on the subject of Lance Venyon.
Jago laughed. ‘The subject came up, I admit. I had my theories about Arthur even then, and no doubt spouted them enthusiastically. Lance was a good listener; he made fun of me as does Mark, contesting every statement. I don’t object to that, it’s a good testing ground for my own beliefs. Anyway, Lance must have been more interested than he pretended, because he became a King Arthur fan himself.’
Georgia inwardly groaned. This wasn’t looking good. The last thing she had expected was that curiosity about Lance Venyon would lead her straight back into Arthur territory.
‘I had been planning to go back to university to do my master’s and doctorate on European history,’ Jago continued, ‘but the war changed everything. I fell in love with Europe, stayed there, took my degrees at the Sorbonne instead, and ended up lecturing in European history in France for many years.’
‘What was Lance like as a person?’ Peter asked.
‘Chalk to my cheese,’ Jago replied promptly. ‘I would think, but he would do. Not that he hadn’t a brain. He had, every bit as good as mine, but I was the academic, he was the practical applicator. He was, as one would now say, a people person.’
‘His daughter described him as an adventurer,’ Georgia put in, ‘and his grandson as a party animal.’
‘Did they? I’m afraid I lost touch with Elaine and her mother after Lance’s death. They moved away from Wymdown to the West Country, and I remained in France with Jennifer. We were married in 1956, and Mark came along two years later. It’s only recently that I’ve met Elaine again. Now tell me, you write true-crime books, don’t you? So why the interest in Lance?’
Georgia seized the opportunity. ‘Elaine was told by her mother that he might have been murdered. We wondered if you shared that belief or whether in your opinion it was even possible?’
Jago was clearly startled. ‘I find that very hard to believe. Of course I was working in France, but I saw Lance frequently. He came to Paris quite often. I suppose murder might in theory be a possibility, but it is highly unlikely. He often sailed alone, and I never heard any suggestion that anyone was with him that day. In any case, pushing someone off a boat is surely a most inexact way to murder anyone. Suppose they climbed back on board?’
‘Murder first, then push over,’ Peter said practically. ‘I was told Lance’s body wasn’t found for some while.’
‘About eighteen months, I recall. And before you ask, I think it was identified through what remained of the clothes and a ring. Most distressing for Mary, even though she asked Jennifer to come with her as support. I remember talking to Mary at the funeral. Jennifer and I came over from France for it. She told me that despite its condition she knew the body was Lance’s. Or was it later she said that? I’m really not sure. Old men’s minds wander, Mr Marsh. You will discover that.’
‘I’m doing so already,’ Peter said feelingly. ‘Would anyone have had cause to murder him? I gather Lance wasn’t the most faithful of husbands.’
‘His lady friends might have lined up to do it,’ Jago replied. ‘That sounds callous, but then Lance could be too, especially where women were concerned.’
‘Any in particular?’
Jago considered this. ‘There was a woman in the village he used to go sailing with. Pretty little thing. Broke her heart and she moved away. She was one of those long-distance sailors, around the world in eighty days and all done with one hand. Venetia something, her name was.’
‘Venetia Wain?’ Georgia asked with interest. She’d not only heard of her but read her books.
‘That’s it. And of course there was Madeleine who lived in France. Now she was a temperamental lady, although I don’t see that extending to pushing someone off a boat. There were other ladies passing through his life too. Poor Mary. Jennifer was most disapproving whenever Lance went too far and boasted about his amours in her presence.’
‘What was his line of work after the war?’ Georgia persevered. ‘Could that have provided a motive for killing him?’
Jago reflected. ‘I would think that more probable. You could be bang on the nail with that angle, if he was murdered, which I still can’t get my mind round. As for his line of work . . .’ He paused, to Georgia’s slight irritation. A slight sense of theatre here?
‘His grandson thought he was in the art world,’ she said firmly, ‘but not a painter.’
‘Colin was right. However,’ Jago looked apologetic, ‘this is a long story. You are sure you wish to hear it?’
‘Yes,’ said Peter firmly.
‘Good,’ Jago chuckled. ‘It’s bad luck for Mark he chose today to visit. I’m afraid where Lance is concerned it is just possible I might have to drag his majesty in. So, let us see how it goes. After the war Lance returned to England, but he hankered for the life of action again, he later told me.’
‘The army?’
‘No. I never quite knew how it came about, but when I next caught up with him he was on the Allied Commission to hunt down art works gone missing after the war. You wouldn’t believe the chaos that the end of the war brought with it. Here one has an image of VE Day and smiling faces, but the wider picture has vanished. Men were coming home long after the war, especially from Asia and the Far East, struggling to cope with severed relationships and to pick up old careers or begin new ones. In France and the other occupied countries displaced men dribbled back from forced-labour and concentration camps, trudging hundreds of mil
es only to find no home or family left. In this human tragedy, art took a back seat for a while, but as life gradually settled down there was a thieves’ paradise of stolen, faked and forged works of art. The Allied Commission began to find that it wasn’t just looted art that they had to deal with. Their investigations revealed a whole industry of faking, notably of course Han van Meegeren, who produced such magnificent Vermeers that even after his exposure some experts refused to accept their origin.’
‘Was Lance still involved in this line up to his death?’ Georgia asked. This was a fertile area, if he had indeed been murdered.
‘Yes. He loved it. It gave a taste of danger, but had a worthwhile purpose. He was a great talker was Lance. People trusted him.’
‘With reason?’
‘Indeed. To Lance it was the game, the chase, not the money involved. Nevertheless he liked the good life, so I’ve no doubt he was well paid. Obviously he was no longer employed by the Commission by then, but he had plenty of other lucrative avenues open. His yacht alone was proof of that. He was deeply interested in works of art for their own sake, whereas –’ his eye wandered to the books at his side – ‘it is history that interested me. Thus we were chalk and cheese, as I said.’
‘So this job could well have given someone reason to want to kill him,’ Peter said, echoing Georgia’s thoughts.
‘I agree. There was big money at stake, big for the 1950s at least. There were gangs who operated in stolen and faked art all over Western Europe with links to the Eastern bloc. They would certainly not have allowed Lance to stand in their way if he was foolish enough to cross them.’
‘Were you still close to him at the time of his death?’ Georgia asked.
‘Certainly I was. As you know, I owned Badon House for a few years and so I paid the odd visit to England too, but it was mostly in Paris that I met Lance. Not long before he died he told me there were exciting developments in our joint passion. I was to await more news shortly. I never received it.’
