Sold to Miss Seeton
A Miss Seeton Mystery
Hamilton Crane
Series creator Heron Carvic
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Note from the Publisher
Preview
Also Available
About the Miss Seeton series
About Heron Carvic and Hamilton Crane
Copyright
chapter
~ 1 ~
PENTONWOOD SCRUBS IS not a high-security prison. True, the main building has clearly been designed to prevent the occupants from escaping: the ground-floor windows are barred, others are too small to permit human egress, and every door directly communicating to the outside world is double in design, with a twin locking system and the keys kept at all times on a chain about the warder’s uniformed waist.
Viewed, however, from that outside world to which its inmates—understandably—aspire, Pentonwood might at a quick glance be mistaken for nothing more than some bizarre Ministry of Defence establishment, or a boarding school for disruptive pupils. There are no massive wooden gates, ribbed with oak and studded with iron; visitors enter through an opening blocked only by a striped wooden pole, raised or lowered by a man on duty in the nearby kiosk. The perimeter is bounded not by looming granite walls, but by an eight-foot chain link fence crowned on its inward overhang by a dozen strands of strong barbed wire. Pentonwood prisoners are not regarded as any great risk to the civilian populace; they are men who are nearing the end of their time in gaol, and who have no wish to risk the loss of their approaching freedom by any foolhardy schemes.
Or so the theory goes.
But theories, from time to time, may be exploded ...
Three days running in the week after Christmas, a helicopter of unknown origin had clattered its way across the airspace directly above the grounds of Pentonwood Scrubs. Its visits delighted and amused the prisoners beneath, but caused perplexed annoyance to the governor, who ordered an identity check to be run on the metallic spy in the sky: and discovered that the numbers on the fuselage—which were altered each day—belonged, according to all known records, to no known registration scheme. The governor dug out his army-issue binoculars, and on the third day took a long hard look at the pilot, in case he was an old friend.
He might have been: nobody knew. Like all good mystery men, he was masked. The governor had to admit he might even have been she. Behind the mask, and with the helmet and earphones very much in place, it was impossible to tell: impossible, also, to tell what he (or she) wanted.
After the more obvious solutions had, for lack of hard evidence, been dismissed, it was concluded that the visits must be caused by an attack of some manic philanthropism. Boxing the compass, the anonymous chopper arrived on the first day from the east, on the second from the south, and on the third from the west. On the occasion of its eastern approach, the helicopter, circling above the prison playing field, deposited upon that field a cloud of white envelopes which the governor—having sent a detachment of warders to collect them—discovered contained Christmas cards for each prisoner, addressed by name, with apologies for the late delivery and best wishes for the remainder of the festive season.
The governor had all the cards bundled up and sent to the local hospital to be X-rayed. He then (with marked reluctance) authorised their delivery, even later than the helicopter pilot might have expected.
Approaching from the south during the exercise hour, the helicopter next day delivered a further selection of cards, addressed, as before, by name. Unlike before, the tone of the good wishes was decidedly muted, since the addressees were, without exception, members of the prison staff; which proved that the pilot—whoever he (or she) might be, knew rather more about the workings of Pentonwood Scrubs than the governor could possibly like.
There also drifted from the helicopter an assortment of white plastic hexagons with delicate spurs and lace-like patterns, suggestive of giant snowflakes. Once more, the governor ordered the offending items X-rayed: once more, it seemed no harm had been done—except to the prisoners, who had been rushed indoors at the first wind-borne rattle of the rotors, and were feeling not a little disgruntled at so sudden a curtailment of their daily quest for fresh air.
On its third visit, the helicopter appeared for the first time to be uncertain about what seasonal offering it should bring. It circled the grounds twice, waggling its rotors and rocking from side to side as those below studied it with care. Suspicious or sensitive natures might have supposed the pilot to be thumbing his (or her) nose at the authorities, except that the governor could confirm that he (or she) was doing no such thing. His, or her, deportment was decorous in the extreme—as far, that is, as anyone’s can be who flies helicopters in plain defiance of all known laws directly over one of Her Majesty’s prisons ...
The pilot was eventually seen to pull a lever; at which a scarlet banner, embossed with green letters, streamed out at magnificent length from beneath the anonymous fuselage to wish the staff and inmates of Pentonwood Prison a Belated Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year. Another lever was pulled: the outsize streamer drifted free of its fastenings, falling to earth (the playing field again) in a riot of billowing silk. The helicopter hovered for a few moments more, observing with interest the flurry of activity from the warders as they ran from the main building to investigate this latest occurrence; then, with one final waggle of its bulky underbelly, it lumbered to the fence, hovered again as it released another plastic blizzard, and rattled briskly away into the distance.
The governor, watching its antics through his binoculars, was so busy trying to read the flashing Morse message of farewell it signalled that he did not notice the half dozen small, round, white objects, camouflaged among the myriad drifting snowflakes, that tumbled from the undercarriage as the helicopter reached the perimeter fence and bounced as they hit the ground, and, rolling, vanished into the tangles of longer grass beside the wire.
Nobody else noticed them, either.
Nobody, that is, on the prison staff—and almost nobody among the prison inmates.
Almost nobody: but not quite.
Cutler noticed. He had been watching. Closely.
For it was Cutler who had planned the entire three-day operation to the very last detail. There is no problem that is insurmountable, if a mind sufficiently quick and cunning is brought to bear on it, and Cutler’s was one of the quickest and most cunning minds ever to have enjoyed the hospitality of Her Majesty. A disgrace to the ancient university that had awarded him first class honours in chemistry, the man was in prison for having used his chemical knowledge to mastermind a forgery scam. He was now nearing the end of his sentence; and he would happily have served out the rest of his term, organizing from inside the various outside activities of his gang by a complex system of coded messages in letters home, had not intelligence reached him of what ev
en the most meiotic of his colleagues—did they but understand the word—must have called a piece of uncommonly bad luck. For once, one of Cutler’s schemes had failed. As in Tennyson’s celebrated poem, someone had blundered ... yet Cutler did not feel the need to escape from gaol merely to administer the appropriate punishment. Reprisals, while effective, could generally be left to underlings. But there were times—rare, indeed, but such times there were—when only the physical presence of the master could avert a catastrophe ...
The interrupted exercise hour was resumed. Cutler, with a few cronies, ambled across to the place where the red silk banner had wrapped itself around the wooden crossbar of the football goal mouth.
“Not there now,” said Snipey after a long, thoughtful pause. Snipey was a sharp-faced, wiry little man whose looks had earned him his nickname—looks that belied his true character, for his wits were notoriously dull. Snipey had been convicted of receiving stolen goods, and even his defence counsel could only suggest that it must have been a genuine mistake, since nobody who knew him would ever trust his client to receive anything.
But Cutler trusted him—or, rather, was relying on him. He had been courting Snipey’s intimate acquaintance for the past few days: the little man and his friends were essential to his plan. He needed them for camouflage ...
“Not there now,” agreed Cutler calmly.
“Any more snowflakes?” enquired Budge, who had the build of a bulldozer, and slightly less brain.
“Screws’ll’ve picked ’em all up,” said Long John with scorn. Long John was at most two inches taller than Snipey, his small cellmate, and his given name was Egbert; but he walked with a decided limp. Prison humorists had promptly hailed his stick as a crutch, and adorned his shoulder with an invisible parrot; over the months, Long John Silver had been shortened to Long John. He was perhaps the most vital member of Cutler’s unwitting team. “Running abaht like blue-arsed flies, wasn’t they?”
“Might have missed one,” said Budge in dogged accents.
“They might, indeed,” interposed Cutler smoothly, but with a quick, conciliatory smile for Long John. “Let’s take a stroll about the grounds. Finders, as the saying goes, may be keepers—if you’ll excuse that word’s unfortunate connotations, of course.”
Snipey, Budge, and Long John would have gladly excused him far more than the odd unfortunate word. Cutler’s personal magnetism, when he chose to exercise it, was remarkable; and he had been exercising it much of late. Moreover, in the opinion of Snipey, Budge, and Long John, there was always the chance he could do them a bit of good once they were out of Pentonwood, and free agents again. Wasn’t he well known among the fraternity for being a man with bright ideas? And didn’t ideas men need other men to help them see them through?
In an amicable silence, the four duly strolled—Long John limping, swinging his stick in an easy rhythm—about the grounds, passing between groups of their fellow prisoners who were, on such a chilly morning, more energetically disposed. Some men ran on the spot or did physical jerks; some kicked a football, others played leapfrog. Some, like Cutler and his colleagues, merely walked.
An impartial observer would have been interested to observe just how many of the walkers were drifting, with the most casual of zigzag movements, in the direction of the barbed wire fence ...
But the governor had put his binoculars away, and was busy studying the silken banner that lay draped in graceful folds across his desk. He never thought to look out of the window; and the watchful warders, far colder than the men they watched, stood brooding on their burgeoning chilblains, blew on their mittened hands, cast surreptitious glances at the clock on the prison tower, and sighed. They had been instructed to allow their charges an extra quarter of an hour outside, as compensation for the time lost during the helicopter’s latest visit; the minutes were creeping by more slowly than a caravan of snails.
“Hello,” said Cutler as they drew near the perimeter wire. “Do my eyes deceive me? Or could it be that we may expect mushrooms for supper, my friends?”
He pointed to a cluster of small, round, white objects lying among the tangles of long grass. “Perhaps not mushrooms,” he said, “on second thought. But certain species of puffball are, I believe, edible. One fries them. With caution,” he added, and chuckled.
Long John and Budge echoed the chuckle, but Snipey was even more determined to curry favour. He scuttled across to the cluster of white spheres amid the grass, and bent down.
“Couldn’t fry these,” he said after no more than ten seconds’ scrutiny. “Not that they’re poisonous, mind. Not if gutta-percha’s safe to eat, they ain’t—which I wouldn’t rightly care to say it is or it isn’t, one way or the other, though I wouldn’t’ve thought as it was.”
“Perch?” echoed Budge, frowning. “Gutted perch ...” He made a face. “Cod, now ... quite fancy a nice piece of cod for my dinner, I could—but I dunno about perch.” He sighed, dreaming of happier times. “With chips—a nice piece of cod ...”
“Passeth all understanding,” muttered Cutler against his better judgement. Luckily nobody heard him.
“If them’s fish eggs,” said Long John, limping across to peer down into the grass, “then that’s the richest load of caviar any of us is likely to see in our sweet lives. Just look at the size of ’em!”
Snipey, who’d had longer to look than the others, here uttered a remark that made his friends roar with laughter. With an effort, Cutler contrived to smile: but his less than buoyant response was lost amid the welter of coarse comment that now erupted from Long John and the thoughtful Budge. Cutler crossed mental fingers, and prayed that one of them would lead the conversation where he needed it to go ...
“Golf balls,” said Snipey at last, and sniggered. “More likely to be a bird than a fish, eh? With golf balls flying through the air, and fish—”
“Swimming,” said Budge, giving the nearest ball a wary prod with his foot. “Can’t say as I care overmuch for exercise. It ain’t healthy. Think of all that ... that chlorine muck messing up yer lungs, not to mention hopping abaht in one place for hours on end filling ’em with freezing cold air.” He directed a scornful look towards his more energetic peers as they jumped and jogged and flung their arms in vigorous display.
“Right,” chimed in Long John as Budge continued to gaze with contempt upon the jumpers and joggers. “Cheap, though, innit? If yer minded to follow such pursuits, I mean. But golf, now,” he said, patting another ball with the tip of his stick, “that ain’t fer the likes of us. Begging yer pardon,” he added hastily to Cutler, who was widely known to play—when at liberty—off a handicap of three. “But it’s true. What’s the chances of the likes of us ever getting to play golf? Golf’s a rich folks’ game, and there’s nobody in here with two pennies to rub together. Present company always excepted, of course.”
“Of course,” said Cutler, promising worlds in two mere syllables: if they would only follow his example, Snipey and Budge and Long John might one day be as he ...
Idly he bent down to pick up one of the small, white spheres. “Not my usual brand,” he murmured, scratching at the embossed trademark, “but, my word, how it reminds me of the good old days.” The murmur was just loud enough for the others to overhear: in such matters, Cutler was an artist.
He achieved a deep sigh. “Right now, the good old days seem a long way off—yet so much the better, when they come again, for the anticipation, no doubt. Freedom.” Another sigh. “The freedom to hit one of these little dears where and whenever you please ...”
He tossed the golf ball from one hand to the other and smiled a whimsical, wistful smile. “Ah, the good old days at the club—the fairways, the greens, even the bunkers, I miss them all. The laughter and chat at the nineteenth hole—not that I miss any of them to the same degree that I miss the game itself, of course.”
Another smile. Those sensitive to mood might have observed something wolfish, rather than wistful, in the curve of the lips, the flash of the t
eeth.
Snipey, Budge, and Long John were, fortunately, unobservant. “Not with such good friends in here ...”
Would the idiots never take the next step? How heavy a hint did he have to drop?
It was the golf ball that he dropped.
It fell to the ground with a doleful plop and rolled no more than a few inches before bumping against a tussock and stopping. Cutler chuckled and clicked his tongue. “Dear, dear, the green-keeper must be disciplined. We’ll rescind his Christmas bonus, shall we? Such a poor putting surface—not,” he said with yet another sigh as the reality of his situation struck home, “that anyone can hope to sink a decent putt without a decent club. Failing which, memory alone must suffice ...”
“Here,” said Long John, “have a bash with this, if it’ll make you happy.” He handed his walking stick to Cutler, who received it with a smile and a sigh which, for once, he made an effort to smother. It was not a sigh of longing, or realization: it was a sigh of relief.
But “Thank you” was all he said; though he said it with a fervour even his self-control could not entirely suppress.
Long John grinned. “Pleasure,” he said. “Anything to oblige a friend—go on, quick, afore the screws sees yer.”
His hands trembling with excitement, Cutler picked up the golf ball and examined the maker’s mark once more. His fingers flickered strangely over the dimpled surface; it was as if he searched for something. Then he nodded, took two steps forward, placed the ball on the ground, and stepped back, fiddling with the lace on his shoe as he did so.
“I wonder,” he remarked, reversing Long John’s stick and taking a few experimental swings, “how far I could send it?”
“Over the wire,” said Budge on cue, though in complete innocence. “Hot stuff, you were—eh, Mr. Cutler?”
“Still are,” said Snipey at once, looking ahead to freedom and the need for a patron.
“You bet,” said Cutler, the most colloquial they had ever heard him. He gave one more practice swipe at the ball, then opened up his shoulders and swung mightily.
Sold to Miss Seeton (A Miss Seeton Mystery Book 19) Page 1
