by Guy Roberts
NAPOLEON’S GOLD
A Jack Starling Adventure
By Guy Roberts
© 2015 Guy Roberts
All Rights Reserved. This book or any portion thereof
may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
without the express written permission of the author.
2300 hrs 13 June 2015, Dorset Square, London.
GR 51.522767, -0.160940
Jack Starling stood alone in the rain-battered shadows of Dorset Square outside his brother’s home. A trickle of rain was working its way down the inside of his collar, yet Jack stood motionless, looking at the house he had not seen for a decade. He was tired and sore from an unplanned and unwanted flight from New York City and now he stood in the shadows, his carryall in one hand and the other thrust into his jacket, cradling the folded up postcard from his brother that had arrived without notice after ten years of silence between the two. The postcard was the reason Jack was on the plane and he still did not know what the message on it meant.
‘Come quickly Jacky, I need your help.’
David had scrawled the words on the back of a postcard shaped like a London double-decker bus. The postcard had been hand-delivered at 6am on a Saturday to Jack’s apartment door in Brooklyn, New York. Hung-over and surly, Jack signed for the postcard, read it, cursed it and dropped it in the bin. There was no love left between Jack and his brother and Jack had happily cursed David before going back to bed. Yet less than an hour passed before Jack pulled the postcard from the rubbish and dialled the number for the family home in London. Except now it was his brother’s home and a tiny flicker of unease was lit in Jack’s heart when his transatlantic calls went unanswered. David Starling worked for British intelligence – a call for help written on a postcard invited all manner of speculation. That was only part of the reason though, Jack had to admit. New York was getting cramped and he had enough money in the bank for reckless travel. Above all else, the postcard had scratched his curiosity. After the phone rung out for the final time he had bought a British Airways ticket and flown out of JFK airport at 10am that morning.
Now Jack stood in the rain, staring up the building where he and David had lived as children. The three-storey building glowered back at him without welcome. Jack had no claim on the building anymore – his brother had inherited it after their father’s death and now the bricks and mortar seemed determined to stare him down, to admit no ties of blood or memory. Jack felt the unease about his brother harden. Something has happened, Jack thought, this house is carrying a secret. Alone in the rain-filled night, Jack felt his muscles tightening in a way they hadn’t since he had been a solider patrolling the streets of Kabul fifteen years before. Jack pushed the nervousness aside and moved under the white archway that sheltered his brother’s front door. The night-time gloom of the archway was nearly impenetrable and Jack’s hand hung over the doorbell for a moment before he reached forward to brush his fingers against the door instead. His fingertips touched lightly against the painted grain of the door, sliding gently across freshly-splintered wood. Someone had jemmied the frame. The door gave way at a slight push and Jack slipped through and closed the door silently behind him. He remained stationary for a long moment, concentrating as the smells and shapes of his childhood returned. He put out a hand to his right, searching blindly in the darkness. It was still there, as it had been for decades – a stout old chair to the right of the doorway, where their father had sat every morning to put on his shoes for the walk to work. Jack silently thanked the fact his brother was a traditionalist and had left such furniture in its accustomed place. Moving as quietly as he could, Jack picked up the chair and placed it against the door, its strong back firmly lodged under the handle. He could sense danger nearby. There was a chance that whoever had broken into the building could still be there, or perhaps return at any moment. The heavy timber seat would keep them in – or out - for what could be valuable seconds.
Jack’s eyes quickly acclimatized to the darkness and the faint street light from the two front windows let him see that the dark foyer of the townhouse was as he remembered – a nicely tiled, high-ceilinged room, basically unchanged since Jack had last seen it ten years before. The home had gone to David after their father’s death. Once Jack hit sixteen years old he had cut out to seek adventure and had never seen any point in coming back. That was a long time ago. Now Jack scanned the hallway carefully, pushing away the sights and smells of his youth. Broad carpeted stairs on the right hand side led upward through the building to their father’s study on the top floor. Except it was David’s study now, Jack corrected himself, converted from servant’s quarters into a well-lit, manly sanctuary overlooking the gardens of Dorset Square. Somehow Jack knew that if his donnish brother was anywhere, it would be there, surrounded by old books and panelled, age-darkened woodwork. He restrained the impulse to call out - if anyone else was home then Jack wanted to surprise them, not the other way around. Slipping his backpack onto the table as he passed, Jack silently ghosted through the ground floor of the building. Jack could move with consummate stealth if he wanted to, and despite his size the only discernible sound was the drip of rain from outside. Each room was familiar, each room was empty. Jack soon vanished upward to the next level, a shadow among the shadows. Behind him, unseen, a tiny red light began to flash insistently on a newly-installed security system panel.
Each level of the house had been empty, every light switched off and every room in darkness. Within minutes Jack was at the very top of the stairwell, facing a final doorway that led to his father’s study. Behind the door, Jack remembered, was a wood-panelled chamber full of comfortable chairs and polished wood, tall bookshelves lined with venerable first editions. The door was closed, but a strip of pale light was visible underneath – the first sign of illumination in the entire building. Jack paused, breathing slowly. Somehow, he knew that whatever had raised his hackles was behind that door. Jack tensed, trusting his senses in a way he had not needed to for many years. Nothing would be gained by waiting. In one swift movement he kicked the door open, fists ready to attack or defend. His combat stance remained as his eyes swept the room, before he slowly lowered his hands to his side. The room was ransacked, books and furniture collected in a messy pile in the centre of the room. The stench of blood filled Jack’s nose.
No fighting would be needed.
David Starling lay across the top of the books. His throat was cut wide and deep.
2330 hrs 13 June 2015, Randolph Mews, London.
GR 51.523942, -0.179958
The van was nondescript, white and unwashed, dented here and there from hard use. Six men sat on metal benches inside the van, each as battered and reliable as the transport itself. There was an awkward sense of frustration growing within each one of them – a resentful suspicion that David Starling – the man they had beaten and killed earlier that night – had somehow outsmarted them. None of the men could have put the feelings into words – nor would they have wanted to. A seventh man, their leader, sat alone in the front of the van, a cruel figure whose poise of concentration demanded total silence. A nearby streetlight threw a shaft of white light across his sharp, aristocratic profile. Pale blue eyes peered coldly out upon the world from above a Gallic nose. The thin, taut face gave him an air of decision and danger, yet the man carried with him an unfamiliar sense of failure. We missed something. The lumbering David Starling himself had said nothing despite hours of brutal torture. David Starling tricked us, even as his throat was cut. The killer’s eyes flicked down to a thin wooden box by his side and his fingers reached down to press upon it for a moment, savouring the touch of fine-grained wo
od. At least we found something, he reassured himself; a collection of half-burnt papers Starling had been trying to destroy when they burst into his study that evening. These papers must be important… they must! The man frowned, uncertain how to proceed. His fingers tapped a brisk staccato upon a cell phone and his lips twitched cautiously.
The cell phone activated, casting a greenish glow across the cabin as the screen illuminated. He swiped the phone, connecting to Paris in an instant.
‘Reynard, did you find it?’ A voice whispered softly into his ear.
‘Non, Monsieur.’ The killer replied quickly, not even thinking of lying to his master. ‘We tortured the man and ransacked his office, as you commanded, but there was nothing, save some scraps of paper he was trying to burn. I will have them brought to you when it is safe.’
‘And the woman – the blonde?’
‘There was no sign of her.’
The voice did not reply. Reynard could sense the six thugs behind him straining to pick up some scrap of conversation. He swallowed, unsettled by the silence emanating from the phone.
‘Return to the house immediately.’ His master’s voice spoke at last, dry and to the point. ‘Someone has entered the building. It may be the girl, it may not. But whoever it is must have been summoned by David Starling and therefore they may know the secrets which have eluded you. Whoever is there, Reynard, bring them to me. Alive.’
The phone went dead. He breathed out slowly. He had a second chance, an opportunity to find the information that David Starling had so stubbornly withheld. Reynard slipped the phone into an inside pocket, then glanced down at the wooden box by his side. The scraps of half-burnt paper within would not be the only precious things they would take from David Starling’s home tonight.
The ignition key of the van was turned and the engine was expertly gunned before the vehicle was thrust out into the darkness. The six men in the back of the van began to smile as Reynard issued curt instructions, his English delivered in a precise monotone. Each one knew they had left unfinished business in Dorset Square. The van raced down a narrow laneway toward their target. Now there was a chance to get the job done right.
2315 hrs 13 June 2015, Dorset Square, London.
GR 51.522767, -0.160940
Jack looked down at his brother’s corpse with an inscrutable expression, his grey eyes cold as they dispassionately analysed the scene of the murder. David Starling lay on his back, spreadeagled atop of a pile of trashed books and furniture, the pile doused with the blood that had flowed so liberally from his opened neck. He had been beaten before he died – David’s face was a broken ruin. A modern LED desk light in the corner of the room threw a ghastly white illumination across the murder scene, making the blood as black as the shadows. Jack could see a single tooth lying on the polished wooden floorboards, and he felt his stomach turn for a moment. Torture, Jack felt a cold anger ignite in his heart. Someone tortured my brother. Jack had seen bodies before, in Iraq, in Kosovo and in Afghanistan. He had stood alive and untouched next to the blasted and bullet-ridden remains of friends and enemies. But that had been more than ten years before, as a soldier of her Majesty’s Army in distant lands. It was something else to find his own brother’s corpse on the top floor of a London townhouse.
The area around David was a rusty reddish brown from blood that had dried and caked onto the floor and books. A deep gash was cut across David’s throat – a fatal wound for any man. Hoping against hope, Jack reached out a hand and pressed his fingers against the carotid artery, feeling for the faintest sign of life. There was nothing. Jack thought quickly, reviewing the situation as best he could. Whoever had broken into the house must have done so under the cover of darkness, or the broken door would have been seen. That meant that his brother had been dead for only a few hours, if that. Jack reached down to a book under David’s shoulder. A thick line of blood had coursed across the open page as David’s life had ebbed away. Jack touched a finger to the desecrated page. The blood was still tacky. Jack swallowed carefully. If I had come sooner, Jack thought, David might still be alive. Jack felt a moment of sadness flare up for his brother. They had been friends as children; as adults, they had become estranged – and now his brother lay murdered in his own home. Jack pushed his sorrow close, squeezing and focusing it into a ball of slow-burning anger. His brother had been murdered. Jack’s jaw clenched once and his eyes narrowed. Whoever had done this would pay. He rubbed his finger against David’s jacket, wiping away the stickiness of his brother’s blood.
Jack took a deep breath, fighting against the iron-tanged smell of his brother’s blood, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket and began to thumb in the 9-9-9 of the London police. It was an American-bought phone, but Jack hoped it would connect to a local emergency number. Yet his finger paused over the connect button and his face went still as he considered the situation. David Starling had worked in the highest, most secret levels of British Government, and his death would be a serious situation. Confronted by David’s murdered body, the police would care little for the postcard that David had sent. Instead, they would see only that David Starling was dead the moment Jack Starling had returned to the UK. Jack would be taken in for questioning at the very least. Investigation would show there was no love lost between the Starling Brothers and then questioning would turn into accusation. Days would be spent trying to prove that Jack had killed his brother, while those responsible for the crime could escape unpunished.
That, Jack realised, was the best case scenario – and assumed that the police could be trusted. David Starling had been part of the shadowy world of British secret intelligence and perhaps the murder was part of a wider plot and Jack was being used as nothing more than a convenient fall guy – arriving in his homeland just in time to take the blame for his brother’s murder. The police would investigate, no doubt, but already a cold suspicion was forming at the back of Jack’s mind. This was not a random murder. David Starling had sent a postcard asking for his help. Jack had arrived too late to keep his older brother alive, but perhaps he could help avenge his death. Jack frowned. He had no faith that the police or Secret Service would do the right thing. Let the police look, Jack decided. But he would search as well.
Jack slipped the cell phone back into his pocket. He wanted to think through the situation first, to find what secrets there were in the chaos of the ransacked room. He looked around the wreckage carefully. Books were piled in disordered heaps, furniture stacked on top – leather armchairs slashed open with brutal efficiency. There was a faint smell of burning, but nothing in the fireplace other than a few wispy ashes. Everything else in the room had been redistributed into a great pile in the centre of the room, surmounted by David’s body. Jack could see his brother had been beaten badly before he died. He hoped that the jagged wound on his neck meant that David Starling had fought to the last. Jack ground his teeth. It was clear that whoever had done this had been looking for something, but it was impossible to say what it was, or whether their search had been successful.
He needed to think. Jack squatted in the darkness behind the LED light, the grisly murder scene spread out before him. Jack let his eyes crawl slowly across the room with clinical detachment, his mind calm as it sorted through the situation. As ever, the deeper he was lost in thought, the harder Jack’s face became, turning into a taut mask of stony calculation. Jack was never aware of how cold he looked when he was focused on a problem of life and death. His nickname among the troops had been Frosty the Snowman, but when the men saw his face tighten into that calculating mask they warned each other that Jack Frost had come to town and that blood and violence was sure to follow. The precocious young David had always teased him for being slow, but Jack’s thinking had a dogged tenacity. When they were children, and their parents were still alive, it had been a family joke that David’s mind was a razor, quick and sharp, while Jack’s was a pit-bull, stubborn and unstoppable. Now, Jack knew, was the time for his mind to bite hold and not let go.
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br /> It was becoming clear that David had known he was in danger. That was why he had sent the postcard and that meant there was a chance – just a small chance – that David had left a hidden message for him here in London; something Jack could find even if his brother were killed and his home ransacked. It would be something that Jack would have to find. After a moment’s thought Jack pulled out the postcard from his inside pocket. Come quickly Jacky, I need your help. There was something in those words, Jack realised. David would have given the message a deeper meaning, something hidden from the casual gaze. Jack was reminded of David’s irritating pride – the same pride of a public school boy who had nicknamed himself Mycroft Holmes – not Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal detective, Sherlock Holmes, but Mycroft Holmes – Sherlock’s older, smarter brother. Perhaps it was inevitable, given that Sherlock Holmes’ famous home, 221b Baker Street, was only a few streets east of Dorset Square. Jack smiled despite himself – he had adored his elder brother as a child and had always been the happy sidekick letting David shine. ‘Come, Inspector Jacky,’ David would crow, ‘the game’s afoot!’ It had always been Davey and Jacky back then, until David had come back from his first term at boarding school and it had been James and David ever since. Until that tourist postcard had arrived, with David calling for Jacky’s help. Jack’s mind latched onto the word Jacky, worrying at it as he sat in the darkness. Why would David use that name again after so many years? Memories of their childhood washed over him again – the two of them running up and down the stairs, bursting into their father’s study – the same room where David’s body now lay cold and stiff – and running across the room to the hidden panel in the wainscoting, installed by their father, where David would triumphantly discover the secret documents, or gemstones, or magical weapons of their games. It was that hiding place where the treasures of their quests were always found. Jack’s eyes slid to the wooden panelling that ran across the far wall of the library. Though the panelling seemed all alike, the section closest to the floor on the left hid an alcove barely a foot deep.
