A week after her meeting with Anna, Sylvia Becker, still in London, received a coded message from Bucharest that all arrangements were now made.
She texted Graham and Richard, giving them one hour to be in her office, and having learned the hard way that it was extremely unwise to keep Sylvia waiting, they were both sitting in front of her desk in just under fifty minutes.
“All right,” she said, as Lombardi, out of harness, rested his golden head on Richard’s knee requesting attention, “it’s Romania this time, and you’ll be the two tourists again.”
“What size vehicle do we need?” Richard asked, scratching Lombardi’s head, to the dog’s evident delight.
“Just a car,” said Sylvia. “The item is not very large. It’s a gold chalice dating from the time of Vlad the Third. You may know him as Dracula.”
“Dracula?” Graham burst out. “You’re joking.”
“I don’t joke,” said Sylvia, in a voice to congeal the blood.
“Sorry,” muttered Graham, breaking the brittle silence which followed Sylvia’s rebuke.
“For your information,” Sylvia went on, in a tone of the purest condescension, “Vlad the Third was the son of Vlad Dracul, and was, therefore, called Vlad Dracula. He was a member of the House of Draculești, and a Prince of Wallachia in the fifteenth century.”
“Is that where we have to go? Wallachia?” asked Graham. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“No,” said Sylvia, sighing. “You’re going to Bucharest. But for your further edification, Wallachia is a region of Romania, north of the Danube, and south of the Carpathian Mountains.”
“Oh,” said Graham, clearly not much enlightened.
“Vlad was famous for his cruelty to his subjects and his prisoners of war,” Sylvia continued, “who he liked to impale on high wooden stakes. Hence, he’s sometimes known as Vlad the Impaler.”
“Sounds like a really nice bloke,” said Graham, but Richard was all business.
“Okay,” he said, “but what’s all that got to do with the chalice thing we’re acquiring? What’s the deal?”
“There’s a traditional belief,” said Sylvia, “that Vlad placed a solid gold chalice in every village and town and boasted that his subjects were so afraid of him, no one dared steal even one of them. The chalice you’ll be acquiring is said to be the only surviving specimen.”
“And it’s how big?”
“About fifteen inches high, and about eight inches in diameter at its widest,” said Sylvia. “It’s in the standard shape of a pedestal cup with a circular base about six inches across. And it’s heavy. Solid gold. Understand?”
The twins confirmed they did understand.
“You’ll tell me when you’re three days away from Bucharest. Then, when you arrive, there’ll be further instructions. What’s different this time is that no burglary is required. Our agent will leave the chalice at a certain place, you’ll conceal it in the car, and drive back here. Delivery to the client will be arranged afterwards, and you don’t need to know anything about that. Clear?”
“Leave it to us,” said Graham, as the two rose to go.
The following day Richard hired a car using an alias and a forged driving license, while Graham went shopping. Later, they and the car were transported at high speed to Paris via the Channel Tunnel. They drove to a small village to spend the night in a bed-and-breakfast using different names and telling their hosts they were schoolteachers on holiday. Driving into the open countryside next morning after a sumptuous breakfast of rolls, diverse cheeses, butter, and homemade fruit preserves, Graham found a little-used narrow track leading into a deciduous forest. Once out of sight of the main road, he and Richard unpacked the tool kit Graham had purchased and set to work on the car. Graham, originally a mechanic by trade, detached the cover from the rear portion of the console between the two front seats and measured the cavity beneath.
“Perfect,” he announced, letting the metal tape snap back into its case. “Lots of room.”
He reset the cover in its brackets, minus the screws, allowing for easy removal when required, and all was done.
They spent the rest of the day touring the countryside, taking pictures, stopping at roadside cafés for lunch and dinner, before finding a hotel where they registered using a third set of identifications. The desk clerk seemed surprised they took two rooms, but merely shrugged, saying, “As you wish, gentlemen.”
The hotel, once a private chateau, offered large, somewhat drafty rooms, decorated in pseudo eighteenth century style with bogus period furniture, and acrylic instead of cut crystal in the chandeliers, all of which needed dusting.
“This is supposed to be Louis the Something-or-other style, is it?” asked Graham, as they mounted the wide, curving staircase to the first floor.
“More like the Reign of Terror, if you ask me,” grunted Richard, fitting the archaic key into the lock in the door of his room and turning it with a loud clank.
* * *
After two more days playing tourists in and around Paris using various identities and documents, along with simple disguises, Richard and Graham heard from Sylvia that everything was ready.
“You should be in Bucharest in three days,” she finished. “It’s just under fifteen hundred miles.”
Sharing the driving, the miles unrolling behind them, they made it easily, and checked into the hotel Anna had recommended. At the time they were settling into their comfortable rooms, however, Anna, herself, was trying to make sense of the chattering voice on her mobile phone. The voice was that of her contact at the National Museum, and the man was almost incoherent with fear and distress.
“It’s gone. The chalice is gone.”
“Calm down,” she snapped. “What do you mean, gone?”
With an effort, the man controlled his trembling voice, and said, “When I came to work at noon, it had disappeared. I found out it has been loaned to the Smithsonian in America. It is to be there five years.”
“Damnation,” growled Anna, seeing her commission evaporating. “Hell, and damnation.”
“What about my money?” asked the distraught voice on the phone. “I must have it. I must pay the nursing home.”
“No chalice, no money,” said Anna. “That was the deal all along.”
“But…but…what is to become of my mother?”
“Ask someone who cares,” Anna snapped, “and don’t ever contact me again, understand?” She heard an anguished wail as she terminated the call.
Anna phoned Sylvia immediately.
“The contract is cancelled,” she said. “I can’t supply the merchandise after all. I’ll explain later. You’d better tell the shipping company.”
“We’re scrubbed,” said Graham, dropping his mobile phone into his pocket. It seems the merchandise is no longer available.”
“So, this whole thing has been a colossal waste of time,” said Richard, morosely. “All this tourist crap and driving across Europe…all for nothing.”
“Looks like it,” said Graham. “We’re ordered home.”
“Well, we aren’t leaving tonight,” said Richard, “and we haven’t come all this way just to sit around in our hotel rooms. I don’t know about you, but I need some excitement.”
“Relax,” said Graham. “This is a great opportunity to sit back and do nothing, for once. And don’t forget, Atilla the Hen is picking up the tab at this very nice hotel.”
“I’m sick of acting like a limp-wristed schoolteacher prancing about taking pictures of cathedrals. If this was a real holiday, I’d be in the pubs. I’d be finding girls”
Graham grinned and announced he was going to bed, leaving Richard to his own devices.
“Good idea,” Richard grunted. “There’s nothing better to do, anyway. But I think I’ll go for a walk first. Get some fresh air. It’ll help me sleep.”
“Okay,” said Graham, “but mind how you go, and don’t get into any trouble. Stay out of the boozers and stay away from the hookers.”
“Yes, sir,” said Richard, mimicking the voice of a small boy in trouble at school. “I’ll be on my best behavior, sir. Honestly, I will. I promise, sir.”
Leaving Richard in the lobby, Graham rode the lift up to the eighth floor of the elegant hotel and reached his room. Settling gratefully into the large, soft bed, he wondered idly what had happened to the merchandise — Vlad’s gold chalice. Why was it no longer available? Had someone got to it before them, or had someone in the system simply got cold feet? Well, whatever the explanation, it was Sylvia who gave the orders, and she expected them to be carried out. She had ordered them to come home, so home they would come.
In spite of his conjecturing, he soon fell asleep, but his rest was brief. He was dragged up from the depths of a sound slumber by a commotion in the corridor outside his room. Thrashing his way out from under the voluminous eiderdown duvet, he sat up, wondering what the noise was all about. Curiosity finally overcame him, and, padding barefoot across the room, he cautiously opened the door an inch and peered out. Half-a-dozen policemen were gathered around the door of a room some twenty feet away down the corridor, and Graham recognized one of the front desk clerks as he inserted a keycard into the lock. It was Richard’s room.
* * *
“It all checks out, sir,” said Neeta Mahajan to Foy, over a cup of tea in the Scotland Yard canteen. “Weber did move house, just as he said, and he got a lift round to the new place in the Ball Brothers’ moving van carrying his furniture. The driver even remembers asking him to put his fag out.”
“And that was definitely the van that was stolen?”
“Yes, that was easy to confirm. I’ve mined all the records concerning Barrow’s car, and I can’t think of anywhere else to turn. The bloke who saw the van leaving the area didn’t get a look at the driver or anything else useful.”
“Damn and blast,” growled Foy. “That means we can’t tie the theft of the van into the theft of Barrow’s car, although my instinct says there has to be a connection. The question is, how the hell to prove it.”
“Well,” said Neeta, “assuming Weber did swipe it and use it to get away after torching Barrow’s car, he’d have had an accomplice. One man can’t drive two vehicles.”
“You astound me, Neeta,” said Foy, in a gloomy voice. He drained his cup before declaring with a grimace, “God, this tea’s terrible.”
“I wish I had better news,” said Neeta.
“Not your fault,” said Foy, with a shake of his head. “You did all you could. We’re back at square one, and that’s all there is to it, I’m afraid.”
“The Super won’t much like it, will he, sir?”
“Stuart? No, he certainly won’t,” Foy said, with a long sigh, “and I suppose I’d better go and tell him. Get it over with.”
“D’you mind my asking why he’s got it in for you, sir? It’s not my business, I know, but…” She let her voice trail off.
Foy hesitated. He knew he could trust Neeta, that wasn’t the problem. It was just that as he thought about the episode now, it seemed so much like harrowing up the past, opening an old wound, and he was not at all sure he wanted to do that. Moreover, once Terry’s murderer was apprehended, he would be gone from the Yard permanently, and the whole thing wouldn’t matter then. However, Neeta would still be there working with Stuart, and if Stuart ever got an inkling she knew about the incident, she could be in a vulnerable position. On the other hand, he reflected, she’s strong enough to take care of herself, and she is working with me now, so she probably has a right to know the background.
He exhaled a long breath.
“It’s a long time ago. Stuart and I were both Inspectors. There was a chap called Charlie Stafford we were after for murdering his girlfriend with a hammer. Stuart, who’s slightly senior to me, and I, were leading the team on it, and I finally collared Stafford one night when Stuart just happened to be off duty. I got a commendation for it. Stuart resented the fact I didn’t call him in so he could share the arrest, but in fact there hadn’t been time to do anything but go straight in and get the bugger before he did a runner. Stafford walked away free, though. The trial judge ruled a key piece of evidence Stuart had collected to be inadmissible because it had been improperly obtained. Stuart managed to pin it all on me, and I could never prove otherwise. The commendation was withdrawn, which was no surprise. That’s why he’s now a Super, and I stayed an Inspector until I retired. Stuart took the view that as his junior I should be the one to carry the can. He knew I was watching every move he made after that, so he made life as difficult as he could for me. He wanted me chucked out so he could stop looking over his shoulder all the time to see where I was.”
Neeta said nothing, merely shaking her head in disbelief.
“It’s all over and done with now,” said Foy. “I don’t really care any longer. It was every man for himself in those days, and some of the other things that went on were far worse than what happened to me. Everyone knows Stuart won’t rise above his present rank, and he knows it too.” Foy grinned before saying, “And, of course, he now has the honor of looking after community relations, doesn’t he?”
“Indeed, he does,” Neeta agreed, with a discreet chuckle. “More tea, sir?”
“God, no.”
With a smiling, “Good afternoon, sir.” Neeta left him and Foy returned to his office. Notwithstanding his status as a reinstated temporary officer, he was responsible for the routine paperwork which abounds in all bureaucracies, particularly those supported by the taxpayer. This was the worst part of the job in his view, but with an inward groan he admitted he could put it off no longer — the accumulation had reached critical mass Turning to his computer, he set to work passing a remarkably tedious afternoon dealing with expense claim forms, travel documents, meal vouchers, and all the other administrivial things considered vital by the luminaries in the accounts department. By five o’clock he was done, but as he sat contemplating the final completion of these Herculean labors, his mobile phone chimed.
“Foy speaking.”
He listened, then said, “All right, we’ll pull the bugger in and sweat him for a while. I’m on my way. Arrange for backup and be ready to go as soon as I get there. And well done, Constable Mahajan.”