The Plantagenet Mystery

by Victoria Prescott

  He hoped he would not be so afraid that he would ever contemplate hurting someone else.

  He made another circuit of his prison, more to keep warm and alleviate his boredom than because he believed he would suddenly see a means of escape that he had missed before. Not that the circuit took very long. Five paces along, four across. Eighteen all round. At least it prevented him from getting too cold. Hunger had returned. To try to take his mind off it, he set himself some mental exercises.

  Kings and Queens of England, with the dates of their reigns: too easy

  Kings of France, with their dates: too hard

  All the American states: without pencil and paper, he kept losing track.

  By late afternoon, Rob’s fear was not that someone would come, but that nobody would. He did not hope for rescue. There was unlikely to be much concern when he did not appear at the record office on his regular days. Everyone would assume that he had told them he was taking time off, or rearranging his days, and they had forgotten about it. That had happened before. He would be missed on Friday evening when he did not turn up to take his class, but with Emily absent, would any of the students make enquiries?

  Chris was the only person who would have any idea why he might have gone missing, but since their argument, Chris was unlikely to be seeking him out. And even if Chris did notice he was missing, Rob was pretty sure he would not go to the police, and what else could he do? What could the police do, for that matter?

  Could he survive another night here? Hunger was uncomfortable, but not life threatening. He must be dehydrated, but not yet dangerously so. The temperature in the hut was unlikely to drop below freezing overnight, but he did not think it had to for him to be at risk of hypothermia.

  The worst thing was the isolation. Rob had always been content with his own company, but it was different when you could open the door, go outside and find someone to speak to. Even if it was just a few words with the cashier as you paid for your shopping. Rob was beginning to understand how people could be driven mad by solitary confinement. If this was intended to ensure that he was cooperative when X finally showed up, it was working, he thought.

  Rob did not want to think about what would happen if no-one ever came. Would he die slowly here? Left, like Wayne, to rot, for days or weeks or months? Furious and desperate, he assaulted the door again, beating and kicking it until his hands and feet were sore and his breath was coming in great gasps that were almost sobs.

  It was close to dark when wheels crunched over the ground outside. An engine stopped, doors slammed. There was a rattling outside the door. Rob stood up and backed against the far wall. The door swung open.

  Rob was not sure what he had been expecting; some super-villain or sinister master criminal, perhaps. These two were far from that. Big men, they more than filled the opening. Big, but not athletic or muscular. One had greasy hair and a beerbelly that hung over his tracksuit bottoms. The other was squat, with short arms and grey crewcut hair. Neither of them was the man who had assaulted Rob at Ashleigh. Both of them carried far more bulk than that man had done. He had been fast, too. Neither of these two looked capable of much speed. They did not look capable of much thinking, either. They stood there silently. Trying to intimidate him, Rob supposed. He folded his arms and glared back.

  His first attempt to speak came out in an unimpressive croak. He coughed, swallowed, tried to get some moisture into his mouth.

  ‘Oh look, it’s Tweedledum and Tweedledee,’ he said. Then he thought that was probably a waste of a good insult. These two had probably never heard of Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘Someone wants you to do a little job,’ said the man with the beer gut.

  ‘Who?’

  Beerbelly’s face had a ‘Huh?’ expression.

  ‘Who wants me to do a little job?’ said Rob, not quite avoiding an I’m talking to idiots tone.

  ‘None of your business,’ said Crewcut.

  ‘Someone had me kidnapped, dumped here, and now wants me to do something for him. I’d say that makes it very much my business. He couldn’t just have asked nicely?’ Rob went on. ‘You know, said please?’ These two did not look as if the word ‘please’ was in their vocabulary. It was stupid to provoke them. They might not be very bright, but they could still do him a lot of damage. But despite his intentions, it seemed Rob could not bring himself to be meek and compliant towards a pair of thugs who looked as if they would be doing well to read the menu at the local chippy.

  Beerbelly moved forward., trying to intimidate.

  ‘You just do it, OK?’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  Rob wondered if one of these two had killed Wayne Simpson.

  ‘You’re going to read something for us,’ said Crewcut. He took something from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. Despite the fading light, Rob recognised it at once. The document he and Chris had retrieved on their illicit visit to Ashleigh Manor, then lost. Rob almost laughed out loud. He did not have to be strongarmed into reading that document. But there was no need to tell them that. Crewcut had now produced a stub of pencil and a small, dog-eared notebook.

  ‘You’re going to read this, and write out what it says.’

  ‘How can I possibly do that here?’ Rob gestured around the hut. ‘I need light. And a table to work at, proper writing materials. That pencil won’t last five minutes, and the notebook is useless. Oh, and something to eat and drink.’

  The two men looked at each other uncertainly. Rob sensed that he had an advantage, and pushed.

  ‘It’ll be dark soon. I can’t work in the dark.’

  The two looked baffled. Then Crewcut, who seemed to be the leader of the two, moved towards the door of the hut.

  ‘Watch him,’ he said to Beerbelly, and went outside. Rob could see that he was making a call on a mobile phone. Asking for instructions, presumably.

  He looked at Beerbelly, still standing in the doorway. If he could get past him, he was pretty sure that in normal circumstances he could outrun him. But he was cold, hungry and thirsty, had no shoes, and no idea which way to run. And as long as he stayed, he might have a chance, however slight, of getting that document back. He considered agreeing to do the transcript, and providing a fake. These two would never know, and presumably Mr X would not know either. If he could read it himself, he would have had no need to abduct Rob for the purpose. Then Rob would know what the document said, while Mr X was still in ignorance. Rob very carefully did not consider the question of what might happen to him once he had done the transcript and they had no further need of him.

  Crewcut had finished his call. He came back to the hut and muttered something to Beerbelly that Rob could not hear. They both left the hut, fastening the door behind them. Rob was once again left in near darkness with nothing to do but wait. There was no sound of a vehicle; they had not driven away and left him.

  It was perhaps thirty minutes before Rob heard the rattle of the padlock being unfastened again. He stood up and faced the door. They had turned on the headlights of their vehicle, and the two men appeared as silhouettes in the doorway. Then the shorter of the two, Crewcut, moved forward, leaving Beerbelly guarding the door, as before.

  ‘No more poncing about, you’re going to do what we want,’ he said.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ Rob said. He knew he would do what they wanted in the end. He did not want to be hurt. But a streak of pride and obstinacy which he had not known he possessed prevented him from giving in too easily.

  ‘You won’t like what’ll happen to you if you don’t.’

  ‘Nothing will happen. You can’t do anything to me. If you hurt me, I won’t be able to do what you want. I expect your boss told you that, didn’t he?’ he added. He saw, by Crewcut’s expression, that he had guessed right.

  ‘We can do things that’ll hurt you that won’t stop you writing,’ Beerbelly said. ‘Which hand do you write with? You won’t need the other one.’

  ‘N
ormally I’m right-handed,’ Rob said. ‘But I’m having trouble using that hand at the moment because of what your boss did to me last week.’ He was exaggerating; his wrist had almost fully recovered. But he saw that he had succeeded in confusing Beerbelly.

  ‘Right, I’m done playing games,’ said Crewcut. He took the document out of his pocket again and held it up where Rob could see it. ‘You won’t read this, nobody else can read it, no point in keeping it, is there?’

  With his other hand he took a lighter from his trouser pocket, flicking it on. Slowly, he brought the lighter close to the document, angling the parchment so that one corner was inches away from the flame.

  Rob reacted instinctively. He hurled himself at the man, reaching for the document. Crewcut turned his shoulder on him, effortlessly blocking his attempt to grab. Rob staggered back a couple of steps, then flung himself forward again. The flame was still dangerously close to the parchment.

  Then all hell broke loose outside.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chris did not exactly avoid Rob during the week after their argument, but he was relieved that he had not seen him. He would not have known what to say. You argued with your mates in the pub about the football, or whether the barmaid was hot, and it was all forgotten the next time you saw them. You did not talk about important stuff.

  Chris supposed he would see Rob again some time, but with any luck enough time would have passed that they could get by with just nodding to each other. The search for the document was over and Chris would not be working at Ashleigh; they would not need to speak. And when he had finished the house and sold it, they would not meet again.

  When he was not at the house in Gladstone Street, Chris’s mind was chiefly on the fact that at the end of the week he would be out of a job again. He had been through the ads in the local paper and called everyone he could think of who was likely to know of any work. He heard the same from all of them: nothing doing. If any of the other men being laid off at Ashleigh knew of anything, they were keeping quiet about it. Chris did not blame them; in their place, he would probably do the same.

  It was Friday afternoon. They had been paid and a couple of the other men had already headed off. Chris was thinking of following, once he had finished this last bit of clearing up. He could see their foreman talking to Frank, the man from the restoration company. He would go and say goodbye before he left. He liked both of them, and would not mind working with either of them again.

  He realised they were both looking at him. Catching his eye, the foreman jerked his head, calling Chris over.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said to Frank. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He walked away. Chris turned to Frank, wondering what was up. Had someone found out about his and Rob’s activities last weekend?

  ‘We need someone to come and help out over the other side. Interested?’ Frank said. For a moment, Chris did not take in what he had said, having been expecting accusations and threats of police action.

  ‘What, like full time?’ he said, finally catching up with what Frank had asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about the sort of stuff you do.’

  ‘You were pretty sharp spotting those doors. Anyway, you wouldn’t need to know that side of it. It’s just taking modern fittings out, stripping back to what was there originally. What you did before. What about it?’

  ‘Well – OK.’

  ‘Good. Come and find me on Monday morning, I’ll get you started.’

  Huh, Chris thought, watching Frank walk away. Who’d have thought he would end up working on a real restoration project, after all his talk about preferring modern houses, and not being interested in old stuff. Rob would laugh. Then he remembered that he and Rob were – well, ‘not speaking’ sounded like what his sister used to say when she was a kid. Whatever, it would not hurt to say hallo to Rob if he saw him. He was an all right bloke, really. He had taken quite a beating, and not complained about it. And he was gutted about losing that precious document of his.

  It was only when he saw no lights on at Rob’s house that evening that Chris remembered that he would be out teaching his class. He left before the time Rob normally arrived home; he would catch him on Saturday, he thought.

  On Saturday morning, Chris was a little surprised to see Rob’s curtains already open when he arrived in Gladstone Street before nine o’clock. He knew Rob was not normally an early riser at weekends. There was mail sticking out of the letterbox; Rob must have gone out very early, before the post arrived, or he would have taken it in.

  Chris set to work. During the morning, he heard the phone ringing unanswered in Rob’s house once or twice. It was well into the afternoon before he left the house again, intending to buy some lunch. The post was still sticking out of Rob’s letterbox. It had begun to rain; the envelopes were getting wet. It was probably junk, Chris thought, but he stepped over to Rob’s front door, to push them right through the letterbox.

  There was a piece of paper lying on the step, partly caught under the front door. Some litter that had blown there, or something the postman had dropped? Chris picked it up.

  The paper was sodden and the ink running, but it was legible enough for Chris to recognise Rob’s handwriting and make out some of what was written.

  In the eastern part of the county, fertile soil and easy access to water transport to the London market contributed to

  Chris had seen how careful Rob was about his notes, everything stacked in piles on his worktable. It might look disorganised, but Rob knew where everything was. He did not believe Rob could carelessly drop a page in the street. He banged on the door, looked through the letterbox and peered through the front window; there was no sound or sign of movement inside. He went back into his own house and used his mobile phone to call Rob. He could hear the phone ringing on the other side of the wall, but no-one answered.

  Rob’s apparently early departure, the piece of paper on the ground; they were trivial matters, but enough to worry Chris. They had involved themselves in an affair in which someone was prepared to use violence to get what he wanted. He could wait and see if Rob turned up the next day, or Monday, Chris thought. Or he could act now.

  There was a six foot wall between the back yards of the two houses. It took Chris a few moments to slip a tool into his pocket, carry out his stepladder and lean it against the wall. He swung himself over and dropped down on the other side. As soon as he had a clear view of the back of Rob’s house, Chris had another cause for concern; there was a light on in the kitchen. If Rob had gone to bed normally last night, why had he not turned it off? Of course, he might have forgotten, and forgotten again that morning, but it was one more small thing to make Chris suspicious.

  He knew Rob's back door was fastened only by a single old fashioned lock. He was glad now that Rob had never got around to following his advice to get something better. A moment’s manipulation and the door was open and Chris was inside Rob’s kitchen. If Rob turned out to be perfectly all right, but annoyed at the damage to his back door, Chris could buy and fit a new lock by way of apology.

  As soon as he took a look around the kitchen, however, Chris knew his instincts were right. There was broken crockery on the floor, a jar of instant coffee overturned on the worktop. There was a paper-wrapped bundle, which on investigation proved to be fish and chips, cold and congealed. There since the previous evening, no doubt. In the main room, notes and photocopies which were normally stacked on the desk were strewn haphazardly on the floor. One sheet of paper had a muddy foot print on it, made by a boot that was too big to be Rob’s. Someone had been in the house. He – or they, it would probably have needed more than one – had snatched Rob soon after he had returned home the day before. Chris wished he had stayed later next door the previous evening; he might have heard something, been able to prevent it.

  It was too late for ‘what if’ and ‘if only’, though. Chris had to decide what to do now. It would take too long to get the police to take it seri
ously, and would mean telling them everything he and Rob had done. Chris did not want to lose his job and perhaps face charges of theft, and he was fairly sure Rob would prefer to keep things quiet if at all possible. Fortunately, Chris had an alternative plan. He left Rob’s house, locking the door behind him, climbed back over the wall and let himself out of his own house. He got into the van, started the engine and set out for Ashleigh.

  He parked in the lane and approached the security cabin on foot, unheard. The door was shut; he opened it, flinging it back so that it crashed against the wall. Terry Kemp looked up, startled, from his newspaper.

  ‘Not much of a guard, are you?’ said Chris. ‘There could be a gang of villains doing the place over and you’d never know.’

  ‘What – ’

  ‘You’re going to do me a favour,’ Chris went on, putting as much menace as he could into his voice and manner. He leaned in close, a hand on each arm of Terry’s chair.

  ‘Yeah, right. And if I tell you to bugger off?’ Terry said.

  ‘Then I’ll tell your bosses about your little game.’

  ‘Why would Securiplan listen to anything you say? You’re a pretty dodgy character yourself, if you ask me, always hanging round here when you shouldn’t be.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not talking about Securiplan. I mean your other bosses. The Wynderbury Police. How will they like it if they find out one of their own is moonlighting as a security guard? I knew I’d seen you somewhere before. I remembered when I saw that scar on the back of your hand. You were at the body at the lockups on the Greenway – PC Kemp.’

  ‘We’re allowed to take second jobs,’ Terry Kemp said.

  ‘They know about this, then, do they?’

  Terry slumped back in his chair.

  ‘You can’t tell them. I need this job.’ His desperation was clear. There was nothing new about the story he told Chris – the debts, the fear of losing the house, the marriage failing under the strain. Terry Kemp was pathetic, Chris thought; he had no qualms about using him to get what he wanted.