Dr Joyner arrived hot and not in the best of tempers. His breath smelt somewhat of gin. I fear I was not as sympathetic as I should have been.
‘Well, at least you didn’t have to wait long at Barnham for another train,’ I said.
‘Twenty minutes,’ he said. ‘Then the guard was awkward about my ticket having already been stamped by the previous guard.’
‘It could have been worse.’
‘Then another forty minutes waiting for the bus.’
‘They are less frequent in the evening. Still, we’re lucky to have a regular service seven days a week. Many villages round here don’t. I’ve put you in the small bedroom at the front. My agent, Elsie, has already taken the much larger one overlooking the garden, having arrived somewhat before you.’
It was at that point that Elsie made her entrance. She had changed into her seaside attire – a blue-and-white-striped dress, with a wide skirt supported by stiff petticoats, deep-red lipstick and sunglasses. She might have been dressing for a fashion shoot for a firm specialising in clothes for the shorter, fatter woman who wanted to be on trend without spending more than was absolutely necessary.
Dr Joyner’s reaction largely confirmed what I had begun to suspect. He stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and contempt – understandable in many respects but never advisable. He was about to make his feelings clear in some way when Elsie tilted back her sunglasses and smiled.
‘I don’t think we’ve met,’ she said, holding out a small, white-gloved hand. ‘Elsie Thirkettle. I’m Ethelred’s literary agent.’
Joyner ignored both hand and glove.
‘I know who you are. You were on the train,’ he said. ‘You and your bloody suitcase.’ His speech was blurred at the edges but his recollections were painfully clear.
Elsie looked puzzled and slightly hurt, though, if Joyner had known her better, he would have realised that proved nothing.
‘I was certainly on a train,’ she said. ‘That’s how I got here.’
‘You were on the same train as me,’ he spluttered. ‘At least, as far as Barnham. As you know very well, madam.’
It would have been difficult not to detect Joyner’s rage. I could only admire Elsie’s response.
‘Oh, did you also travel down by train this evening, then?’ she asked conversationally.
Joyner looked like a man who, descending a staircase, had missed not just the last, but the last three stairs.
‘Yes,’ he said. He frowned. After a bit, he remembered to close his mouth.
‘But you clearly arrived on a later one than I did?’ said Elsie, ignoring the dribble on his chin. ‘Otherwise we’d have seen you at the station. Ethelred very sweetly came to meet me. So much easier than the bus. I’m sure he’d have given you a lift too, if you’d arrived on the same train. What a pity you didn’t.’
‘Yes,’ Joyner repeated. ‘But that’s my point, you see, you told me—’
‘Trains can be so tiresome, can’t they? And they can be crowded, at this time of year. Did you manage to get a nice seat? I do so hope that you did.’
Joyner stared at Elsie, as if questioning his own sanity rather than hers. It was a feeling that I knew well. He had been about to say something to her. Something deeply felt. Something he really wanted to say. But suddenly he had a suspicion that the rules of logic, if not the laws of gravity, had been changed without anyone telling him.
‘So, we didn’t have a conversation on the train …?’ His voice tailed off as if it had nowhere left to go.
‘If we had, I’m sure I’d remember it.’
‘There was somebody on the train who looked almost identical … you might be twins …’
Elsie smiled sweetly, in a way that she never did if she was merely sticking to the truth.
‘I’ll go and unpack,’ he said to me. ‘I’m suddenly feeling quite tired.’
When he had gone, I said to Elsie, ‘What exactly was all that about?’
‘Oh, he thought I was some woman on the train who’d made him look like a total dickhead.’
‘If you didn’t see him at all, how could you possibly know that?’
‘Woman’s intuition. And, yes, there is such a thing. And, no, men are not allowed to question it in any way.’
‘So, did you make him look like a total dickhead?’
‘No need,’ said Elsie. ‘I just sat there and watched.’
Dinner was a simple affair. Cold chicken, simply cooked. A green salad without dressing. Some peaches. Half a dozen Mars bars. Two or three Wall’s Cornettos.
‘Are you sure you two don’t want a Mars bar?’ said Elsie, opening the last one. ‘I think I’ve possibly had more than my share.’
‘I’m good,’ I said.
‘All that salad isn’t healthy,’ said Elsie. ‘It’s mainly water. Probably full of plastic. Did you see that David Attenborough programme? All water, everywhere, is about ninety per cent plastic bags. Fact. Really frightening.’
‘I’m not sure it applies to lettuce,’ I said.
‘I bet it does.’
‘Except, in real life, nobody has ever found any plastic bags in lettuce.’
‘They sure as hell haven’t found any in Mars bars,’ said Elsie. ‘If they had, David Attenborough would have told us all to eat Twix. And I honestly don’t think he did. I watched one episode and recorded the rest, so I couldn’t possibly have missed it.’
Fine, Mars bars were healthier than lettuce. I’d just have to remember that if I didn’t want this conversation again.
‘What is the plan for tomorrow?’ asked Joyner. ‘When do we see Mrs Munnings?’
He had been relatively subdued at dinner, concentrating on his food, drinking only water and occasionally casting suspicious glances in Elsie’s direction.
‘Iris won’t see us until the afternoon,’ I said, ‘so I thought we could take a run over to Sidlesham first and look at the Abbey. Elsie’s curious to see it.’
‘Why not?’ said Joyner. ‘I’d like to take another look anyway. And maybe have a word with the idiot who runs it. He’s not being as cooperative as I’d like.’
I was, in fact, a very good friend of the idiot who ran it, but I decided to let this go.
‘We are due at the Priory at two o’clock,’ I continued. ‘And not a moment before. Iris will be happy to talk about the house and the story of the theft back in the sixteenth century. Tell her as much or as little as you wish about your own project. But please don’t mention any possibility of excavations.’
Joyner grunted non-committally. Well, if he raised the subject of digging, it might as well be for his own grave. Or for his book’s own grave.
‘I mean it,’ I said.
‘There’s been a new development,’ said Joyner. ‘Iris Munnings is no longer in the position of strength that she imagined she was. She will have to cooperate. I can make her do it.’ He looked at me as if wondering how much he could trust us with this information. Then he looked at Elsie and decided. He took a sip of coffee. Personally, I doubted he could influence Iris in any way at all, whatever he’d just found out. But I’d leave him to discover that for himself.
‘So, what is your new book about, Dr Joyner?’ asked Elsie.
Joyner frowned as if fearing some new trick, but Elsie’s gaze seemed to convey nothing but genuine interest and admiration. ‘It’s a story of intrigue and deception,’ he said, cautiously, ‘dating back to the sixteenth century, but continuing today. Oh, yes, continuing up to this very minute. It is the story of death and hypocrisy and of how gold can corrupt.’
‘Does it have sadomasochism in it?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘Handcuffs? Whips?’
‘No.’
‘Nazis?’
‘No.’
‘Wizards?’
‘No.’
‘Could you put some in?’
‘They wouldn’t be relevant in any way whatsoever. If you’d allow me to—’
‘You could call the book “The Nazi Wizard”,’ Elsie continued. ‘Big swastika on the front of it. Or a riding crop and velvet-covered handcuffs.’
‘It’s about the dissolution of the monasteries.’
‘Of course it is. But nobody will know that until after they’ve bought it. It’s all about the cover.’
‘The words count for something,’ I said.
‘But not as much as the cover,’ said Elsie.
‘Well, my book’s to be published by Oxford University Press,’ said Joyner. ‘I doubt they’d have gratuitous swastikas all over it.’
‘If I was representing you,’ said Elsie, ‘I promise you they would.’
Joyner paused thoughtfully. Was he willing to sacrifice the integrity of his book to boost sales? Probably. Did he want an agent as ruthless and lacking in moral principle as Elsie clearly was? Yes, obviously. Still, there were limits.
‘There weren’t any Nazis then,’ he said firmly. ‘Not even for marketing purposes. But the story is nonetheless full of trickery and deceit. It concerns the Maltese Madonna – or rather, the Maltese Virgin – and Christ, because there were originally two statues, each about eighteen inches high and, so the story relates, formed out of solid gold and richly encrusted with gems.’
‘Also – though I’m just guessing here – maybe made in Malta?’ Elsie asked.
Joyner smiled. ‘On the contrary,’ he said, ‘they were Byzantine – immensely valuable in their own right, but priceless as objects of veneration.’
‘I thought it was just one statue that the Abbey possessed,’ I said.
‘Yes, according to the traditional version of the story,’ said Joyner. ‘Which may be wrong in a number of respects. But originally there were certainly two of them. They were seen as guardians of the church in which they resided and of the city of Constantinople as a whole. When the Turks laid siege to Constantinople in April 1453, both statues were paraded around the city to reassure everyone that it could not fall to the invader. But fall it did. Legend has it that the statues were stolen by a Knight of St John, who was present in the encircled and increasingly desperate community. He escaped through the Turkish lines, but at a price. The Turks wanted payment for his safe passage. He kept the Virgin but handed over the statue of Christ. Thus, he escaped unharmed and returned to the knights’ stronghold in Rhodes but, like Judas, he had sold his saviour. That’s when the story of the curse begins. After that betrayal, the remaining statue brought only misfortune on its owners. The Knights of St John were, in their turn, expelled by the Turks from Rhodes and obliged, homeless, to wander from place to place until granted the island of Malta by the Emperor in 1530. Then the statue vanished again. Stolen, according to one account, by “an English friar”.’
‘That must have pissed the Knights of St John off,’ said Elsie.
‘I think they were pleased to have seen the back of it. Relieved of the curse, they remained happily on Malta, seeing off a major Turkish siege in 1565 and taking part in the naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto in 1571. They did OK.’
‘And it then shows up in Sussex?’ she asked.
‘The same year, by some remarkable coincidence, Sidlesham Abbey announced that pilgrims would shortly have the opportunity to venerate a wonderfully bejewelled image of the Virgin. People flocked in large numbers and paid well to see the statue, which the Abbey claimed to have had in its possession for many centuries, but which, tellingly, became known in these parts as the Maltese Madonna. So the locals apparently knew something about its origins.’
‘Well, at least somebody finally benefited,’ she said.
‘Far from it,’ said Joyner. ‘The curse continued to do its work. Word got back to London of this valuable relic and the King took an interest in it. A great interest. When, a few years later, the visitations of the monasteries began, with an eye to dissolving them and appropriating their wealth, Sidlesham Abbey was amongst the first to receive the King’s commissioners. They demanded to inspect the famous gold Virgin.’
‘And the commissioners took it away?’ she asked.
‘They never got to see it. The Abbot had claimed that, yet again, it had been stolen. The commissioners did not believe him, but a week of questioning, no sleep and a diet of bread and water did nothing to change his story. Then a local resident, an employee of the Abbey, let slip that a wagon belonging to the Prior of West Wittering had been seen leaving Sidlesham late at night.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s the part of the story that is well known here. The Abbot accused the Prior of having stolen some treasure from him and having concealed it at the Priory. The Prior stole it and buried it – or the Abbot was lying and had already buried it at the Abbey to stop the King getting it. In which case the tale of the Prior’s wagon was a carefully constructed red herring to get the commissioners to search in the wrong place. It’s clear that the King wasn’t sure himself which was true. When the two institutions were dissolved, and the buildings and land were sold off to new lay owners, the transfer documents specifically excluded any items of gold found buried on either site. The King wasn’t going to be deprived of the treasure, wherever it was.’
‘So who would own the Madonna, if it was found?’ asked Elsie. ‘Legally, I mean.’
‘I’ve no idea,’ said Joyner. ‘The Knights of St John? The Catholic Church? The Church of England? The Crown? Istanbul City Council? Possession is unlikely to be obtained by anyone who is unprepared for a long legal battle. The person who found the statue might well decide to keep quiet about it. They might also be well advised to unload it as quickly as they could in view of the curse.’
‘So, you think it is there to be found?’ I asked.
Joyner again looked at Elsie and me as if still unsure how much to trust us. ‘In the last few days I have come to believe that it has been discovered already – or something very much like it. I have what you might describe as concrete evidence.’
‘So where is it? At Sidlesham or West Wittering?’ I asked.
Joyner laughed, slightly uneasily. ‘For very obvious reasons, I prefer not to say exactly where it is at this moment.’
‘But one or the other,’ said Elsie. ‘After all, you’ve come to Sussex. So that must be a bit of a giveaway, no? If it’s not down here, your visit would seem to be a waste of time.’
‘I’ve come to confirm certain things,’ he said.
‘All right,’ said Elsie, cutting as usual to the chase, ‘if it’s in the possession of somebody down here, all you’d have to do is wait and see who dies a horrible death in the next few days, then move in and search their house.’
Joyner’s reaction was a sudden coughing fit. He reached out instinctively for his water glass then, on mature reflection, seized an opened bottle by the neck and finally poured himself a glass of wine. His hand trembled slightly as he lifted it to his lips but was steadier by the time he placed the glass back on the table. ‘I couldn’t have put it better myself, dear lady,’ he said. ‘You don’t get to keep the statue without something happening to you. Something deeply unpleasant and probably fatal. The Maltese Madonna and death go hand in hand.’