Waking Caliban

by Mike Cartlidge

  “That,” I said, “is because there isn’t any more to tell.”

  “Who’s your client, then?”

  “As I told Sergeant Tench, I was in Stratford minding a man called Roden. I’d like a chat with him if you should come across him.”

  He rested his elbows on the wooden table. “Not Roden. I mean your real client.”

  “Roden’s real,” I told him.

  Tench stepped forward and placed his hand on the back of my chair. I suspected this was meant to be threatening in some way and, in other circumstances, I might have laughed. My years-ago Para training had included classes on how to stand up to interrogation and our instructors had assumed we’d be dealing with people who were a tad less restrained than provincial English cops.

  “About Professor Roden’s business…” Tench said quietly. “He must have mentioned what it was…”

  “He told me it was to do with some literary research he was doing.”

  “So why did he need a bodyguard?” Rainbow interrupted.

  “Professional jealousy? Perhaps he was paranoid. I don’t know. All I know is that he was prepared to pay our going rate.”

  “Which is all the likes of you would be concerned about, right?” said Tench.

  Over the next twenty minutes, they treated me to a few more demonstrations of rural charm and I repeated the official line and then repeated it some more. I knew they’d have had no better luck with Isbey, who could make a ‘no commenting’ politician look like a tipsy auctioneer. If they were spending this much time with me, my guess was that they had no better leads on the killing of our men. I said as much and suggested they get out and start trying to pick up some sort of scent instead of wasting the taxpayers’ money.

  From their expressions, I’d guess my suggestion didn’t do a lot to endear me to them.

  ***

  Eventually, they left me alone again and, five minutes later, a uniformed officer came in and told me I was free to go. Isbey was waiting for me at the front desk and we walked outside into sunshine that, after the hours spent in windowless rooms, was vaguely surprising. When we returned to the car, we discovered that some local meter maid had given us a parking ticket. Isbey folded it calmly and put it into his pocket, his face expressionless.

  We drove back into the touristy parts of the town and found a hotel for the night, Isbey’s executive status securing us a higher class of accommodation than the Almoner’s Arms. That evening, we drove to the scene of the shooting, Isbey having been given the address by one of the police detectives. The cottage was in Shottery, a mile or so north of the town center. The village was best known as the one-time home of Anne Hathaway and was hardly the place you’d expect a ‘gangland slaying’, which was the way I’d heard a local station describing it on the car radio. Small and unassuming, the cottage had a thatched roof with roses and ivy growing around the front door and windows. From a distance, it was tourist postcard material but, looking closer, I saw signs of paint peeling on the woodwork around the windows and weeds littering the flower beds, as though the property had once been owned by a loving family but was now in the hands of strangers. The police had told Isbey it was owned by a local man who had inherited it from an aunt. The owner had been renting the place out but the last tenant had vacated it the previous week and as far as he was concerned the cottage had since been empty.

  We stood at the front gate, held back by the yellow crime scene ribbons. The police had told us that Thorpe and Young been shot down by the front door. Without really thinking about it, I found myself looking for bloodstains on the path and general signs of violence but, from where we stood, the place looked peaceful and unsullied.

  Chapter 5

  On the Monday morning, the national newspapers carried reports of the murders in their inside pages and there were a number of references to the agency. I guessed the London office would be fielding phone calls and enquiries and trying to give away as little as possible. Isbey, who was probably glad to be in Stratford, away from it all, spent the morning making whatever arrangements were needed to deal with the aftermath of the deaths. I was aware that there would be coroners’ inquests of some sort and, some time afterwards, funerals, but that was as much as I wanted to know. I spent my time walking around the town until Isbey called to tell me he’d finished his business. I met him where he’d parked the car and we drove back to London in silence.

  There was a meeting with Bakst that afternoon. When he was shown into Isbey’s office, he wasted no more time on words of condolence for our lost men. To my surprise, he was adamant that we continue the search for Roden and, when and if he was found, provide protection for him. The protection he had in mind seemed to go almost as far as protective custody.

  “Mr. Bakst,” Isbey interrupted, “it seems reasonable to assume that the deaths of our operatives has something to do with Mr. Roden’s disappearance…”

  Bakst looked at him blandly. “As I advised you before, I know of no such connection.”

  I stood by the window and shook my head in amazement but both of them ignored me.

  “The agency,” Isbey said calmly, “has no choice but to assume otherwise.”

  Bakst treated him to an aggressive stare. “Does that mean, sir, that you and your people lack the courage to continue with this assignment?”

  “It’s not a question of courage,” Isbey told him calmly. “The thing is-”

  “There’s no problem with my continued involvement,” I interrupted. “If the agency won’t allow me to continue, I’ll do it on my own time.”

  “That won’t be necessary, Hastings. We’ll allow you to carry on and we’ll provide you with some backup.” Isbey leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs, smoothing out the creases in his trousers. “Mr. Bakst, we need to know what we’re dealing with here.”

  Bakst sat down in front of the desk. “I regret that I can impart little additional information.”

  “When Roden and I were driving down to Stratford,” I told him, “he was talking about some sort of literary matter.”

  Bakst pulled at his fleshy lower lip but his expression was bland. For a moment, I thought he was going to clam up but then he sighed. “I was contacted a few days ago by a gentleman who purported to come from Stratford-upon-Avon and who claimed to have certain artifacts in his possession. This gentleman offered to relinquish these items in exchange for a financial consideration.”

  “Who was this man?” Isbey asked.

  “Unfortunately, I have no idea,” Bakst replied. “It was all very secretive. The gentleman who contacted me said he would only reveal his identity if I or one of my representatives traveled to Stratford and met him at a venue of his choosing. I considered going myself but, on reflection, decided to send Roden in my stead. We agreed that Roden would check into one of the local hostelries and wait to be contacted.”

  “Why send Roden?” I asked. “Why not go yourself?”

  Bakst breathed deeply. “The artifacts that were being offered for sale needed to be authenticated. Professor Roden has a certain reputation as an expert in his field. His instructions were to go to Stratford and verify that the items we were being offered were as represented. If and when he advised me that they were genuine, I intended to travel to Stratford myself to negotiate with the seller.”

  “And these items that you were being offered…” I prompted.

  “The gentleman who contacted me claimed that an archaeological excavation at the site of certain ancient dwellings on the outskirts of Stratford had unearthed documents relating to William Shakespeare. The documents were sealed in a lead container and thus well preserved.”

  “What kind of documents were these?” I asked.

  Bakst held out his hands and examined his fingernails. “I was told they comprised a copy of Shakespeare’s will and some other papers, apparently given by the poet to a friend of his and subsequently hidden beneath the floor of the friend’s cellar.”

  There was a short interruption while
a secretary bustled into the room, carrying a bone china tea service on a silver tray. We waited while she poured cups of tea and then left us to it. Isbey used a pair of silver tongs to drop a slice of lemon into his tea and then blew carefully on the steaming liquid. “Mr. Bakst. Why did this person contact you?” he asked.

  “I believe,” Bakst said, “that I am reasonably well-known both as a collector and a connoisseur of Shakespearean memorabilia. And, of course, I have the wherewithal to pay for it.”

  “And this archaeological find would have been valuable?” I asked.

  “It is difficult to say. We were advised that the papers in this ‘lost treasure’ included some which may have been written by Shakespeare himself. That alone would have made them worth a great amount of money. Apart from a signature and some disputed fragments of a manuscript on which Shakespeare may have collaborated, no examples of the bard’s actual handwriting have ever been come to light.” He sipped his tea and looked at us calmly. “We were advised that the recovered papers also contained some references to other caches of documents which had been concealed nearby.”

  “If that was the case,” I asked, “why didn’t the man who contacted you have those too?”

  “Their recovery posed some practical problems. These documents were supposedly placed for safe keeping inside a well on the property of this friend of Shakespeare’s. However, this well has long since disappeared. The gentleman who called me from Stratford obviously realized that he needed help from someone with the resources to engage in a larger expedition and, presumably, some sort of excavation.”

  “And,” I said, “if your man had started digging up large chunks of Warwickshire, the authorities might have been a little curious about what he was up to.”

  “Exactly so,” said Bakst. “I think the size of the task rather intimidated the gentleman. I suspect, also, that he saw the opportunity for an expeditious profit – from the papers he already possessed – without the need for hard work.”

  “So what were you thinking of paying him?” I asked.

  “We had tentatively agreed on a price of half a million pounds.”

  Isbey leaned forward. “Once Roden had authenticated the documents.”

  “The arrangement was that, after he was contacted in Stratford, Professor Roden was to view certain of the papers. If they appeared genuine, he was to bring a fragment of paper back to London so that we could have it carbon-dated. Unfortunately…”

  “Roden disappeared first,” I said.

  “Regrettably so.”

  I walked around Isbey’s desk and sat down next to Bakst. “So, who was it who came to my hotel room and tried to perform emergency chiropractic on my upper spine?”

  “I have no idea.” Bakst spread his hands to emphasize his innocence. “Although it occurs to me that certain other parties may be in receipt of intelligence concerning this supposed treasure.”

  “That’s occurred to me, too,” I told him. “It also occurred to me that these characters may have something to do with the deaths of our people.”

  “That’s a matter for the police to resolve. My concern is solely with the Shakespeare papers. And I’d rather the police weren’t involved in that particular matter. If they were involved, you see, my guess is that the full set of papers would never see the light of day.”

  “Or they’d end up in a museum,” I said.

  He stared at me for a few seconds, in the manner of a schoolteacher with a disrespectful child. He obviously didn’t realize I’d been to an English boarding school, which meant I’d faced enough intimidating schoolteacher types to render me immune for life. I figured, if we were regressing to our schooldays, I’d return his stare and wait to see whether he’d blink first.

  It was Isbey who broke the silence. “Mr. Bakst, I have to tell you that the agency has strict policies about adhering to the law of the land-”

  “If you’re talking about my involvement in recovering antiquities, no laws are being broken,” Bakst said. He broke the stare and looked at Isbey. “The relevant British law in this case is the Treasure Act of 1997, which replaced the ancient common law of Treasure Trove. The Treasure Act simply states that anyone who finds an historical artifact must report the discovery within 14 days to a government organization called the Treasure Trove Reviewing Committee. The committee sets a value on the find and the finder is rewarded accordingly. If the Shakespeare documents are genuine, I would, of course, like to acquire some for my own collection but I’d be happy to take my reward and bid for them. The rest can go to museums or whatever other persons or institutions are deemed proper by the designated authorities.”

  “I’m assuming,” I said, “that the likely value of these papers would compensate you for your trouble.”

  “I am confident that that would be the case. I can assure you, gentlemen, that my intentions in this matter are entirely honorable and my actions law-abiding.”

  The gentleman, I thought, protested too much. “So, you want us to find Roden and put this scheme of yours back on track.”

  “I patronize your agency because I’ve always been satisfied with your services during our past dealings and because you are held to be experts in your field,” he said. “This matter is, as you will appreciate, of the utmost importance to me – as it would be to any lover of Shakespeare and his remarkable body of work – and I’m prepared to double your normal fee if you continue to act for me.”

  I cut in before Isbey could say anything. “The fee can remain the same. But we’ll expect you to make a donation, equivalent to our total fee, to the families of Thorpe and Young.”

  “Sir, I find your terms admirable and entirely to my liking.” He stood, smoothing down the cloth of his trousers and shooting his shirt cuffs before turning towards the door.

  Another question occurred to me as he was leaving. “This old friend of Shakespeare’s – the one he was supposed to have given these papers to – what was his name?”

  “His name?” He raised his eyebrows and peered at me. “Why, it was Hamnet Sadler. He was an old friend of the family.”

  I watched his pear-shaped form as he walked past reception towards the lift. Hamnet Sadler. I couldn’t put my finger on it but something about the name struck a chord.

  Chapter 6

  That afternoon, I hired a little Toyota hatchback and parked it in a local multi-story before walking round the block to Madame George’s. Being Monday, nothing much was happening and, after making sure she wasn’t occupied, I knocked on Chantelle’s door on the first floor and asked her if she’d eaten. She was starving, she told me with a smile, and together we walked round the block to Giovanni’s Trattoria.

  It was Chantelle whom I’d rescued from the acid-wielding patron in the incident that had led to me moving here. She was nearly six feet tall and described herself as a native of Rwanda by way of ten generations of Alabamans. Her ethnicity and stature made her especially desirable to certain of George’s clients but she also possessed an intelligence and depth of learning that was only ever revealed in glimpses, like the hem of a Victorian matron’s petticoat. We’d become friends, united by common solitariness and, although we never discussed it, the same unreasoning tendency towards depression.

  We sat down and ordered cannelloni and veal piccata and I told her about Thorpe’s death.

  “He was an old friend of yours, right, Hastings?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Back in your army days? It’s too bad,” she said. She slid her long fingers over the red-checked tablecloth and rested them on the top of my hands until the waiter brought wine and we sat back to let him fill our glasses.

  “I owed him,” I said at last.

  “Because he got you working again after…”

  “Not just for that. He had faith in me. I never properly thanked him. For any of it.”

  She sipped her wine and looked at me over the rim of the glass. “You plannin’ on findin’ the people who did him in?”

  “I t
hought I might.”

  “I’m glad I’m not them.”

  We talked on over the food. She brought me up to date on her news and told me a story about an unruly client of George’s who’d decided to take an SM session a little too far. The client had ended up trying to use a whip on Brabant, Madame George’s enormous bouncer. Brabant had picked him up, dragged him downstairs and thrown him into an over-flowing dumpster.

  “A filled-up dumpster rather than the hard road? Brabant’s getting very considerate.”

  “I don’t think Brabant meant to be considerate, exactly,” she said seriously.

  “That was a joke.”

  “I was laughin’ on the inside.”

  I smiled for the first time in days. Chantelle didn’t really do humor.

  It was around eleven PM by the time we finished the meal and walked back to George’s. The place was livening up and the sounds of partying wafted out of the salon. Brabant was standing like a sentry in the hall, arms crossed, and he called out when he saw me. I had a visitor, he said. He shot the sleeves of a bright green shirt that could have been a family-sized tent in a past life. “I put her in Madame’s private study,” he rumbled.

  When we walked into the otherwise-deserted study, we saw a slim, blonde woman sitting in a winged armchair in front of George’s desk. She stood as she heard us enter, took my hand and introduced herself as Miranda Roden.

  I suppose I showed my surprise. “His sister?”

  Her head dropped for a moment and then she rallied and looked me full in the eyes. “I’m Robert Roden’s wife.”

  I tried to control my reactions, although it wasn’t simply surprise that made my breath catch. This woman wasn’t stunningly beautiful, in the conventional Hollywood sense: there was too much strength in the set of her eyes and her cheekbones for that. It was rather that she had about her an air of something more than usual consciousness, as though, when she looked at you, she locked onto you with an abnormal intensity, like every fiber of her being was concentrating on you and what you were thinking. Her mouth was slightly upturned at the corners, as though she was perpetually on the brink of smiling. She was about thirty and was dressed in a smart, cream-colored business suit, the skirt of which fell just below her knees. The dress didn’t quite gel with her expression which was curiously poised between innocent and demimonde, like a libertine posing as a school marm. I invited her to sit and introduced Chantelle, who showed no signs of wanting to leave: rather, she set herself down in another of the wing chairs, slowly crossing her long legs and gazing deadpan at the newcomer.