NATIONAL TREASURE

by Barry Faulkner

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters and incidents in it

  are the work of the author’s imagination.

  Any resemblance or act relating to any

  persons, living or dead, locations or

  events involving them, is entirely alleged

  or coincidental.

  Published by BSA Publishing 2021 who

  assert the right that no part of this

  publication may be reproduced, stored in

  a retrieval system or transmitted by any

  means without the prior permission of the

  publishers.

  Copyright @ B.L.Faulkner 2021 who

  asserts the moral right to be identified as

  the author of this work

  Proof read/editing by Zeldos

  Cover art by Orphan Press, Leominster

  NATIONAL TREASURE

  Ben Nevis and the Gold Digger Book 2

  CHAPTER 1

  Harry Cohen had said she was a ‘national treasure’. That’s what he’d said on the phone: ‘Wear a decent suit, she’s a national treasure.’

  She didn’t look much like any type of treasure to me, let alone a national one – buried treasure maybe; found, dug up, and needing bit of restoration.

  Harry had called me on the office phone that morning.

  ‘I’ve got a job for you, Ben, not the usual type. Can you come round later?’

  ‘Not the usual type’ sounded interesting. The usual type of job for Harry Cohen, ‘Theatrical Agent to the Stars’ – well, that’s what his business card says, although most of the stars he handles are burnt out and on their last twinkling. The majority of his clients these days are young Z-list celebrities nobody has heard of who do a couple of reality television series where the blokes flex their abs and the girls get their tits out and then they disappear – the usual job I do for Harry is security: keeping people at a fair distance from one of these Z-listers when they open a supermarket or similar major cultural event in their brief time in the public eye, or keeping screaming girls away from Harry’s latest boy band and getting them from the concert venue to their hotel and keeping them there. Are you getting the vibe that I’m not impressed by these ‘stars’? You’re dead right, I’m not. So a ‘national treasure’ had sounded intriguing. The lady in his office wasn’t.

  Harry Cohen’s offices took up the first floor of an updated Victorian building in Wardour Street, very handy for the theatre area of London and for the offices of a host of other agents and entertainment production companies. Being in central London there’s no parking of course, so rather than pay the exorbitant NCP charges I took a leisurely stroll across London Bridge from my office in the Borough High Street and wound my way through the tangle of streets to his lair. I like doing that in London, taking in the vibes and energy of the place. It never sleeps and hardly ever pauses for breath. Love it.

  I wore a decent suit like Harry had asked, but kept the faith with my social class with a Status Quo T-shirt. Harry pulled his semi-obese body up from the large swivel chair behind his large desk in his large office, with large pictures of his stable of talent on the walls, as his secretary showed me, in using one hand to push my hand off her shapely backside. It was just a bit of fun; we’d known each other a long time, ever since I started working for Harry about six years ago when he’d been one of my first clients after I left the Met and went solo, and his recommendations to others in the entertainment industry had brought a lot of business my way so I felt I owed him a bit.

  He stood and came round to shake my hand. Everything with Harry was large – the office, the swivel chair, his desk, his cigars, his ego, especially his ego – and lots of things with Harry were also a bit far from the truth, like the large pictures of Tom Hanks, George Clooney, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci on the wall, with Harry’s agency details overlaid in the corner. No doubt those major stars do have UK representation, but it ain’t Harry Cohen; not unless they’re up for Love Island and I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

  The ‘national treasure’ was sitting this side of the desk facing Harry, so I couldn’t get a good look as I entered.

  ‘Ben, thank you for coming,’ Harry said as he pumped my hand. ‘I don’t think you’ve met Marcia before, have you?’ He waved a hand towards Marcia, who I took to be the ‘treasure’. She stood and turned towards us. ‘Ben Nevis, Marcia Johnson. Marcia Johnson, Ben Nevis.’ Harry beamed his introductions. The name didn’t register with me. One thing that did was that she didn’t remark on my name; most people who meet me for the first time do. I guessed Harry had filled her in on the fact that I had been named after a Grand National winner that my dad had won a bundle on, and not a bloody mountain. Good. We won’t have to go through that old story again.

  We shook hands, she retook her seat, and Harry fetched a chair from the side of the room for me and put it down in front of the desk where we could all see each other. Bells were ringing in my head; I sort of recognised this lady. She was in her early sixties, slim and elegant in a tailored brown trouser suit, dark ankle boots and bluish-gray shirt that matched her hair, which was in a multidimensional pixie cut. Impressed on my fashion knowledge, eh? Google. But what struck me most about Marcia Johnson were her eyes. Cornflower blue, striking – could be colour contact lenses, but nevertheless striking. So, as I said before, ‘treasure’? The face looked haggard and was the part that needed restoration: lined, bags under her eyes, and a grey tinge to the skin. A worried face, very worried; sort of lady my mum used to call ‘mutton dressed as lamb’.

  ‘You want a coffee, Ben?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No, I’m fine thanks.’ I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve asked Harry to get a proper coffee machine, but the tight bugger still has his secretary use the rubbish from jars.

  He spoke to Marcia. ‘As I told you earlier, Marcia, Ben has worked for me on a variety of occasions over the last ten years, and if anybody can find Janie he will.’

  Ah, now I was getting the story. Who was Janie? Wayward daughter run off with boyfriend the family don’t approve of? Or maybe she was a much-loved dog that had been stolen?

  ‘Tell Ben what you told me.’ Harry sat back and puffed on one of his large cigars.

  Marcia Johnson gave me a weak smile and a resigned look of worry, together with a small shrug of her shoulders, ‘Well, Mr Nevis, I really can’t tell you an awful lot. Janie is my daughter; twenty-two and a sensible girl, a serious actress, stage and screen.’ She paused as Harry stood and leant across the desk to pass me a 10x8 standard colour promo pic of Janie. She was a stunner; sharp chiselled features under a balayage lob haircut – Google again – a slim body in sensible blouse and skirt and a wide smile. Marcia Johnson carried on. ‘I haven’t heard from her for a fortnight, nothing. Her phone is dead and her flat is empty. It’s so unlike her, Mr Nevis, we talk every day, we shop together. She wouldn’t just go off without telling me, she just wouldn’t. I’m so worried.’

  She was welling up. I can’t stand it when females cry. Harry stepped in offering a tissue across the desk.

  ‘Can you find her, Ben?’ He raised his eyebrows at me. ‘She opens at The National in a month – she’s missed rehearsals which she would never normally do. Something’s wrong, as Marcia said. This just isn’t like her at all.’

  I put on my sympathetic face. ‘I can have a go. You could register her as a missing person?’

  ‘Should I?’ Marcia Johnson looked from me to Harry.

  Harry waved the suggestion away. ‘I’d hold on a couple more days, give Ben a chance to have a look for her first.’

  I liked his confidence in me. Or maybe it was his worry at the press getting the story and the National cancelling
her contract, and with it his commission – probably the latter.

  ‘Married? Divorced? Any boyfriends?’ I asked, the usual ‘your starter for ten’ questions.

  Marcia Johnson shook her head. ‘No, not married or divorced. As for boyfriends, I don’t know – none that she ever spoke seriously about.’

  Looking at Janie Johnson’s picture I was bloody sure she had boyfriends; they’d be queuing up for this lady.

  ‘Close friends? Member of any clubs, or a gym? Car owner?’

  ‘Oh, so many friends – but I’ve called all those I know, and none have seen her. I think she belongs to a local gym, but I don’t know of any other clubs. She has a car but it’s still outside her flat. She has a parking space.’

  ‘Okay, well first off I’d like to have a look around her flat.’

  Marcia Johnson picked up a Burberry handbag from beside her and fumbled inside it, bringing out a key with an ident attached. She passed it to me.

  ‘That’s the key, Janie insisted I had one just in case – just in case of what I don’t know. The address is on the tab. There’s an alarm system, the keypad is on the wall in the hall on the right as you go in – it’s 210666, my birthday. It’s the only way I would ever remember the code.’ She laughed to herself softly.

  I had other questions, but I’d ask Harry later. I didn’t want to overload Marcia Johnson’s brain with nasty thoughts that her daughter may have been kidnapped or even murdered. I didn’t really know why I was thinking along those lines either, but in my game you do, you just do.

  ‘Okay.’ I stood to go. ‘I’ll get round to the flat sometime today or in the morning and get a few things going, put a few feelers out. Hopefully Janie will turn up and wonder what all the fuss is about.’ I gave Marcia Johnson a reassuring smile.

  ‘Oh, I do hope so,’ She did some more fumbling in the handbag, pulling out a card that she passed over. ‘My home address and phone, Mr Nevis. Please keep me informed, and please find her.’

  I bade the pair of them goodbye and called an Uber to get home. I didn’t fancy the walk back; it was beginning to rain and my Quo T-shirt would probably run – it was a knock-off from East Street market. I gave the Gold Digger a call from the cab.

  ‘You working?’ She sounded out of breath.

  ‘No, at the gym.’

  ‘Marcia Johnson mean anything to you?’

  A short pause. ‘Actress, good one – must be getting on a bit now, but if she was in it, you could bet it would be good. Did all those upstairs downstairs big-house-in-the-country dramas on TV.’

  ‘The ones where the Duke’s son gets the maid up the duff and she’s sent away, and in the end the child inherits it all and the nasty grandparents end up potless?’ I said. I can’t stand them. The Gold Digger and me have totally different tastes in entertainment. She lives in BBC4 and Sky Arts; I live in Netflix and Sky Sports.

  She laughed. ‘Yes, why are you interested in her?’

  ‘Harry Cohen called me in to meet her earlier. Her daughter’s gone missing.’

  ‘Didn’t know she had one. How old?’

  ‘Twenty-two – actress, good-looking.’

  ‘Old enough to look after herself then.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought that.’

  ‘So why is mummy so concerned?’

  ‘You tell me. Have a dig around on the family background when you get a minute. I’ve got a few more questions that I didn’t want to ask Harry in front of mummy – I’m going to give him a call.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can find out. You in the office tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll come round about ten.’

  Click, she rang off. Not one for long goodbyes is the Gold Digger.

  My first meeting with the Gold Digger – I just call her Gold – was in Pakistan in 2011 when I was with the military in N14, a part of the SAS. We were shadowing the US Seals as they took out Bin Laden’s compound; our job was to intercept any Pakistan forces that might make for the area after the attack went in. They didn’t, but a malfunction on one of the SEAL’s Chinooks meant we picked up a few of them to lighten the payload. Gold was in the other shadow, an Israeli attack helicopter; at the time she was in a unit of Mossad’s FB13 elite unit as a commander. We crossed paths at the debriefing after the operation and went our separate ways; I served the allowed time in N14 and was seconded into MI6 on the Anti-Terrorism Squad, and she left FB13 and went back to Mossad before her time was up too. In all the elite fighting forces of the world, your time in service is limited; keeps the units refreshed and you from getting stale, and making a mistake that could kill you and others.

  After three years behind the Taliban lines, sometimes hidden less than five yards from one of their armed patrols, I wasn’t too disappointed to be discarded and moved to MI6 – not too disappointed at all. A few years in MI6 and I got bored with shadowing Islamists and white supremacists and struck out with my own private investigator business. I reckoned that at forty-three if I didn’t do it now, I never would. Gold meanwhile had put military service behind her too and moved to London and taken up gold digging again – the ancient art of a young lady relieving an older man of their wealth, or at least some of it, by giving the mark the impression she is about to surrender herself to his every whim. She never does, of course, and the old fool showers her with gifts and money in the false hope that they will unlock the door. At thirty-four I suppose Gold comes under the category of MILF, although she’s not a mother – five eight and a tight slim figure belies her age. She reminds me of a young Jennifer Rush – younger readers, look JR up. ‘Power of Love’, one of the best ballads ever made.

  Gold is very good at the gold digging scam, but made one mistake: she targeted one of my clients. I sussed it was a scam straight away, and when I set up a false meeting at the client’s luxury home in Berkshire I couldn’t believe who turned up. We clicked again and from then on she’s been my back-up, hovering in the background watching my back when I’m working. Some of my ‘jobs’ involve nasty characters to whom violence is pretty standard procedure, so having Gold around limits the danger.

  I made the call to Harry Cohen after I got home and made a coffee – a proper coffee – and had suppressed my hunger with a hot pork and apple sauce sandwich bought from the deli opposite. Lovely.

  Harry’s secretary answered.

  ‘I’ve got the test results back – it’s pink. Congratulations, now we’ll have to get married.’

  ‘Hold the line, Ben, I’ll put you through.’ Perhaps I’d played that line on her too many times. Harry’s phone rang twice before he picked it up.

  ‘Harry Cohen.’

  ‘Ben Nevis, got a minute?’

  ‘Yes, go on. What did you think of Marcia?’

  ‘Lovely lady, bad situation.’

  ‘Yes, I’m relying on you, Ben. Find the kid.’

  Kid, she’s twenty-two. ‘Couple of questions, Harry, ones I didn’t really want ask her.’

  ‘Okay, fire away.’

  ‘Where’s the bill going?’

  ‘To me.’

  And I bet he takes his twenty percent before passing it to Marcia Johnson.

  ‘Two grand a week or part of, plus expenses.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Upfront.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Ben, she’s good for it.’

  ‘Upfront.’ Business is business, and in the unlikely event that I don’t find Janie, Marcia might not want to pay. Things don’t always work out to the client’s satisfaction, no matter how much time and effort you put in, and time and effort have to be paid for.

  ‘All right, I’ll transfer the first week to your bank account tomorrow. Next question?’

  ‘Where’s the husband?’

  ‘Whose, Marcia’s?’

  ‘Yes. Where’s her husband and Janie’s father? She never mentioned him.’

  ‘They split when Janie was three.

  ‘Why?’

  There was a silence for a few seconds. �
�She kicked him out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She was young and impressionable at the time, Ben, but not at the start of her career – already a name, and that sort of puts suitors off. You’ll be playing second fiddle from the start, so not many chaps had the balls to date her except him.’ Another pause. ‘His name was James Randall.’

  I could see why he had paused. ‘THE James Randall?’

  ‘Yes, THE James Randall.’

  ‘He’s dead.’

  ***********************************

  I clicked on my laptop and pulled up James Randall on Wikipedia. I wanted to refresh my memory.

  James Randall, London organised crime gang boss 1946 -2020. Eldest son of the Randall Crime family from South London. Controlled the London area drug scene with an estimated ton of cocaine sold every week through a network of street dealers and club security people. Established import routes directly from Costa Rica through Romania and Eastern Europe. Shot dead by Metropolitan Police Organised Crime Squad marksmen in Epping Forest after picking up bags of drugs dropped from a low flying Cessna aircraft and firing at police detectives.

  And that was it? Nothing about his family, nothing about Marcia or Janie? Very strange. Had it been edited? You can do that with Wikipedia; if you have something to add to a post you can register as an editor and add it. I checked the page’s editors. There it was – Harry Cohen edited the page March 2020. Harry had removed any reference to James Randall’s marriage to Marcia and of their child Janie – all gone. It doesn’t actually say what changes Harry had made, but it doesn’t take much to figure it out. I skipped to Marcia Johnson’s page. Same thing, Harry Cohen had been in and edited it. Pound to a penny he’d removed all reference to James Randall. But why?

  Maybe producers and casting agents had been reluctant to look at Marcia Johnson for a part in their upcoming productions when she was married to James Randall, with the unspoken threat that if she didn’t get the role they might get a visit? Now he was dead he could be removed from her life totally, and Harry had seen to that, so maybe he was thinking it would be good for Marcia’s career. Janie didn’t have a page.