Death of an Elgin Marble

by David Dickinson

  Another correspondent claimed that the Tsar’s chief minister was responsible for the theft. The Caryatid had been taken in a sealed train to St Petersburg and would never be discovered as it was concealed in the depths of the Winter Palace, a place full of unrecorded rooms and corridors nobody ever visited. From these secret quarters the Tsar and his wife could bring her out for private viewings in the dark watches of the night. Alexandra, wife of the Tsar, was said to believe that the Caryatid had special powers relating to fertility and haemophilia.

  The police had insisted right from the start that all correspondence should be assessed within forty-eight hours of receipt. The rejects were preserved in large filing cabinets provided by the bank. The more interesting, even the doubtful, went through to the detective inspector whose workload was less arduous but more responsible than his colleagues. Illtyd Williams’s letter fell into the doubtful category.

  ‘What do you think of this one here,’ the first sergeant said to the second sergeant, ‘big barns in Wales and hammering heard in the night? Enormous coffins being sent away to Bristol for transit to God knows where. Man beaten to death at the end. Throw it in the bin, do you think?’

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ said the second sergeant who was an avid, if secret, consumer of the wilder reaches of detective fiction. ‘God knows,’ he said after a moment, ‘could be true, mind you. Anything might happen in Wales. Let’s send it through.’

  Burford, Powerscourt thought, is really one very long main street running downhill to a fine old church at the bottom. There were a few people about at eleven o’clock in the morning: a vicar walking his dog, a publican bringing barrels out of his cellar, a couple of old ladies armed with wide hats and shopping baskets. Powerscourt thought the place could stand for the essence of England. Even the pubs that lined the main street and the little roads running off it had names resonant with history. There was a Royal Oak and a Highway Inn, a Bull, a Lamb and a Mermaid. In the churchyard at the bottom the dead of England had slept for centuries, Coopers and Farmers and Smiths, some of them lying here since the turmoil of the Civil War. Powerscourt wondered what the Caryatid would make of Burford with its quaint rituals, its weekly market and the fluctuating fortunes of the village cricket team on the village green. She came from a more tumultuous world, not one where the potential extremes of religion and belief had been tamed and watered down into the lowest common denominator of the Authorized Version and the Book of Common Prayer. You could have mysteries involving a descent into Hades, sacred boxes and sacred baskets, mind-altering drugs a key part of the ritual, secrets so secret that disclosure meant death, in Eleusis, but not in Burford. You could have oracles in Delos or Epirus but not in Banbury. The orgy on the island, sacred to the god Dionysus, where Ariadne reeled down the mountain drunk, disorderly and holding something revolting, could happen on Naxos. It couldn’t happen in Oxfordshire, not even in Kingston Bagpuize.

  The antique shop had no doubt of its identity. Burford Antiques occupied a prime position halfway down the High Street. Old books filled one of the windows, an elegant Pembroke table the other. Powerscourt was welcomed by a young man who must have been the thinnest individual he had seen in his life. He seemed so skeletal that you wondered if he ever ate anything at all. His nose was long and thin, like its owner, and he had a mop of unruly brown hair.

  ‘How can I help you, sir?’

  Powerscourt resisted the temptation to say that the best thing the young man could do to help would be to have a large meal at once. ‘I was looking for Mr Blakeway, actually. Is he here today?’

  The thin young man shook his head. ‘No, he’s not here today, sir. He usually drops in once or twice a week, normally on Saturday afternoons.’

  ‘Do you have an address where I could find him, by any chance?’

  The thin young man sighed, as if he was asked this question more often than he would have liked. Was Powerscourt just another debt collector or a man yet to be paid for his antiques? Did Mr Blakeway still consort with his former fellow inmates in Wormwood Scrubs?

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘Surely you must be able to contact him in an emergency?’

  ‘I could,’ said the young man defiantly, ‘but that doesn’t mean I’m to hand the address to any Tom, Dick or Harry who comes along.’

  Powerscourt thought this was the first time in his life he had been compared to any Tom, Dick or Harry who came along. It was a whole new experience. He thought he rather liked it. But he didn’t want to make a scene that might be reported back to the elusive Mr Blakeway.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘another time perhaps. A very good morning to you.’

  The landlords at the Royal Oak next door and the Lamb across the street had no memories of Mr Blakeway. Neither had their companions in arms at the Bull or the Mermaid. Maybe Mr Blakeway was teetotal. Powerscourt caught up with the vicar, the Reverend Matthew Carey, and his dog just as he was going back in to his Old Rectory with the River Windrush meandering along the bottom of his garden. The vicar’s wife provided coffee and home-made cake.

  ‘Please forgive me for taking your time, Vicar, I am an investigator, I’m afraid, employed by the British Museum, to look into the disappearance of the Caryatid.’

  ‘Goodness gracious,’ said the vicar, ‘you don’t think she’s here, do you, here in Burford?’ He looked around him suddenly as if the statue might be hiding behind a bookcase.

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Powerscourt with a smile. ‘But I was rather hoping to talk to your Mr Blakeway, the man who owns the antiques shop halfway up the High Street.’

  ‘That Mr Blakeway,’ said the vicar with a sigh, ‘I didn’t think we’d heard the last of him, even when he went away.’

  ‘Were you suspicious of him in some way?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly. He came to church fairly often when he first arrived, but I never felt his heart was in it. I don’t think he was a believer, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘So why do you think he came to your services then?’

  ‘I never worked that out. My wife saw him once when I was reading the prayers with his eyes wide open, staring at the stained glass. I don’t think that is normal behaviour.’

  ‘No, indeed,’ said Powerscourt reflecting on the innocence of a world where a man could be marked out for keeping his eyes open during prayers. ‘Do you think he came to make friends? He must have been a newcomer to Burford at that time, surely?’

  ‘I don’t think that was the case. We have a number of social gatherings, mainly for the old and the lonely, though we’re not meant to say that, but he was never seen at any of those.’

  The vicar went over and stood by his window, watching the birds on the lawn. A swan floated by with that irritating air of complete superiority.

  ‘May I ask you a question, Lord Powerscourt?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is Mr Blakeway a suspect in some way for the theft of the Caryatid? It seems scarcely possible that such a crime could be conceived here in Burford.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say he was a suspect,’ said Powerscourt, but something in his tone did not convince the Reverend Carey.

  ‘But he is, isn’t he? You’re just being prudent, and quite rightly so. Goodness me, a master criminal here in Oxfordshire, it doesn’t bear thinking about!’

  ‘Not so fast, vicar, you’re running away with yourself.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Lord Powerscourt. Martha always tells me I mustn’t rush to judgement. But thinking about crime and Mr Blakeway in the same sentence does give me another idea. I wonder if it’s correct, it might well be.’

  ‘What is this idea, vicar?’

  ‘Suppose Mr Blakeway is a man with a past, a record, as I believe people in your profession refer to it. He comes to Burford, because it is so peaceful. He goes to church because that’s what he thinks people here do. But it was all a cover; he was trying to persuade us he was one sort of man when in fact he was somebody completely dif
ferent. We were cover, matins, Holy Communion, evensong, all used for a purpose totally different from what the church fathers intended. What do you think of that?’

  ‘I think you might well be right,’ said Powerscourt, and he did.

  Inspector Jack Hegarty was enjoying his return to active service on the top floor of Finch’s Bank in Finsbury Circus between Moorgate and Liverpool Street station. During his time with the Met he had served all over London, ending up in the crime-filled quarters of Catford and Rotherhithe. His wife was, if anything, even more pleased than her husband about his return to the colours. Having grown accustomed over many decades to Jack’s irregular hours, frequent absences, sometimes not returning home until three or four in the morning, and general unpredictable behaviour, she found his regular appearances at meal times, as regular as the clock he had been given as a retirement present, rather a strain.

  The Inspector had lost count of the number of letters he had read claiming the reward for the recovery of the lost Caryatid. Privately he felt certain that good police work rather than the efforts of a pack of amateurs, many of them, in his view, clinically insane, would secure the return of the statue. He was nearing the end of a four-page missive from Crewe in which its author claimed that the most likely means of transportation for the missing Athenian lady would be a railway container. His correspondent helpfully provided a number of diagrams of the things, and lists showing the various dimensions of different sorts of container. There were a lot of exclamation marks, and in a number of key places the conclusions were underlined with bright red ink. In spite of all that, the Inspector added it to a small pile he was going to discuss with his colleague Christopher Kingsley later that day. The man probably works on the bloody railways if he lives in Crewe, he said to himself. His next letter came from Wales. There were no drawings and no underlinings in red ink. One section fascinated him. He read it three times. It spoke of a man kicked to death, stamped on, cigarette burns on his arms. Bells were ringing in the Inspector’s brain. It took him a moment to remember why this account stirred his memory. One of his many protégés, a young inspector called Ferguson, was now working in Deptford. He had horrific stories of the exploits of some violent gangsters called the Twins who specialized in gangland punishments and executions, including cigarette burns. There was no mention in Illtyd Williams’s letter of any twins, but there was a reference to two people who came from London.

  Inspector Hegarty ran down the stairs at top speed to the telephone exchange where the police had been given priority. ‘This is very urgent,’ he said to the girl. ‘I need to speak to the police based in Brecon in South Wales. Just put me through to the police station. And after that, can you get me Inspector Billy Ferguson on the line? You will find him at the police station on Deptford High Street.’

  Artemis Metaxas was still escorting a number of Greek girls to the College near Amersham every weekend. The money was good. Artemis was putting most of it aside to pay for her wedding dress the following spring. She noticed that the girls were always the same now. Eight of them made the journey on the train with the blacked-out windows. And though they were careful not to talk about what went on during their country outings, Artemis suspected that there was a major event being planned at the College. Artemis’s charges were going to take part. And they were very excited about it.

  Six men were crowded round the little table on the top floor of Finch’s Bank in Finsbury Circus. Inspector Hegarty and his two sergeants had their backs to the street, Inspector Kingsley, Powerscourt and the policeman from Deptford, Inspector Ferguson, had a view of the rooftops of the City. Billy Ferguson was in his late thirties, a cheerful soul with ruddy cheeks and jet black hair. He finished reading the note from Wales and passed it back to Jack Hegarty.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of this, Jack. Do we know anything about the writer, apart from the fact that he says he’s a head teacher? Do we know that he really is a head teacher? The people who write these kinds of letters often think they’re the Pope or Queen Victoria or H. G. Wells.’

  ‘I’ve spoken to the police station down there,’ said Hegarty. ‘The man who looked into the murder is not on duty today. He’s going to call me first thing in the morning. But they did confirm that Illtyd Williams runs the local school and that the murdered man was on the staff there. That’s all I’ve got at the moment.’

  ‘Could you tell us, Inspector,’ said Powerscourt, ‘what concerns you about the letter from Wales? What exactly don’t you like the sound of?’

  Inspector Ferguson sighed. ‘It’s all tenuous so far. I’m going to put two and two together and come up with an answer that’s more than four, if you’ll permit me. The letter only speaks of two men. It speaks of another man kicked to death, trampled on and with cigarette burns on his arms. It’s the cigarette burns that send all my alarm bells ringing. All kinds of murderers have been known to kick people to death, as we are all aware. But the cigarette burns are almost a trademark, a calling card for a particularly violent couple of criminals in my patch known as the Twins. They’re well known for torturing people with cigarette burns among other horrible things. I believe they really are twins, by the way. They act as enforcers, as the muscle behind the throne, if you like, for the gangster who runs Deptford and half of Rotherhithe, Carver Wilkins.’

  ‘He wasn’t christened Carver, surely?’ Inspector Kingsley asked.

  ‘No, he wasn’t. I’ve no idea what his real name is, actually. His nickname was originally Carving Knife because he used to carry one around in his coat pocket and pull it out at appropriate moments like Billy the Kid drawing his gun. Then it got shortened to Carver. They say he still walks round with the carving knife in his coat pocket.’

  ‘What sort of criminal is our friend Carver?’

  ‘There are a lot of robberies, we believe, almost all of them outside the borough so we don’t get to hear a lot about them. His main activity is protection rackets. We think most of the local shops pay up, maybe some of the more affluent householders, who knows? Obviously all the pubs shell out and the few restaurants in the place. Even the undertaker has to pay his way. If you don’t pay, you get a visit from the Twins. That often means a couple of weeks in hospital for repairs. They collect the money once a week and bring it back to Carver. Most of the prostitutes in Deptford are on the payroll, and the pawnbrokers and the moneylenders. Carver is like a human leech, sucking the lifeblood of the community. And I don’t have to tell you gentlemen that prosecution is virtually impossible. You need witnesses. Once you are known to be appearing as a witness you too have a visit from the Twins and your face is beaten in.’

  ‘And what, Inspector Ferguson, do you suppose the link might be between Deptford and a sleepy little place in South Wales?’ Powerscourt had been trying to imagine what form such a link might take and failed.

  ‘I don’t know and I won’t pretend to know, my lord,’ Ferguson replied, ‘but I’m going to find out. I’m going to speak to my governor when I get back to the station and suggest that I and a couple of my men take a little trip to the valleys. Fresh air will be a welcome change from Deptford.’

  ‘I wish you luck with the Welsh,’ said Inspector Kingsley. ‘They’re so suspicious of outsiders. I hope they won’t clam up on you just because you don’t sound like you come from the next valley.’

  ‘I’ve had dealings with the bloody-minded Welsh before,’ said Inspector Ferguson, and it sounded from his tone as if the memories were not happy ones. ‘That’s why I want to take two others with me. We can interview the policeman, the schoolteacher and the schoolteacher’s wife all at the same time. They won’t have a chance to get together and cook up some pack of lies then.’

  ‘I think that’s an excellent plan, this expedition to the Land of My Fathers,’ said Powerscourt. ‘I wish it God speed and good luck.’

  ‘We’ll keep going with the letters, so we will,’ said Inspector Hegarty, ‘we might find some more gold dust, who knows?’

  On the way
to the underground at Liverpool Street Inspector Kingsley threw in another piece of information. ‘Our Greek friend, my lord, Kostas, we’ve been looking into his past, as you know.’

  ‘You mean the late Kostas? The man under the train?’

  ‘The same. It transpires that before he worked for the British Museum he did similar work for a place called the Hellenic College near Amersham. Do you know anything of it?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Powerscourt.

  One thought troubled him on his way home. He wondered as he always did on his own about the whereabouts of the Caryatid. Where was she now? It was becoming like losing a daughter, he said to himself. What troubled him was the link, if there was one, between gangsters in Deptford and the murder of a schoolteacher in the Brecon Beacons. And how on earth could those two events be linked to the theft from the British Museum? And, last but not least, was there a link between Deptford, South Wales and the urbane man, possibly bald, who drove Deputy Director Ragg round the streets of London in a taxi?

  18

  Inspector Ferguson laid his plans carefully on the train to Wales. He himself would speak to his opposite number who had looked into the death of Carwyn Jones. Sergeant Bennett had the advantage of being Welsh. His family had left the principality when he was sixteen to look for work in London. He had told Inspector Ferguson that he could still understand the language. His mother, he said, spoke to him in Welsh every time he went home for the weekend. Bennett’s task was to speak to the other policemen who had been involved with the death at the undertaker’s, well away from their superior officer. The third man in his command, Sergeant Broome, was to speak to the widow and see what news he could find. Broome was always being teased in all the stations he had ever worked in about his looks. At one point it looked as though he was going to be stuck with the nickname Sergeant Adonis, but the usage faded when most people using it realized that they had no idea who the original Adonis bloke actually was.