The Deadly Game (6 page)

‘Well?’ asked Munro.

Jake shook his head.

‘No,’ he said.

Munro sighed.

‘You’re making a big mistake, Jake,’ he said. ‘We’ll get most of the books on our own, anyway. I’m offering you a great opportunity.’

‘No,’ said Jake again. ‘You’re using Lauren and me to help yourself and your clients.’

‘Not all our clients are bad people,’ countered Munro.

‘The ones with the real money are,’ said Jake.

Munro fell silent. His smile had gone.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But, if you change your mind, you can always get hold of us.’ And he took out a small business card and passed it to Jake. ‘Remember, you owe us. We got you off that murder rap, gratis.’

‘And there’s no such thing as a free lunch,’ said Jake bitterly.

Munro nodded.

‘I believe that’s what people say,’ he said pleasantly.

Chapter 8

Exactly as Munro had promised, the car dropped Jake off outside the main entrance to the Department of Science. Jake waited until the car had pulled away, then he took out his phone and dialled the number Michelle had given him. His surprise meeting with Munro had given him even more determination to find a book and get it out into public knowledge as fast as he could. Michelle answered straight away.

‘I’ve got the list of potential Arthur sites,’ Jake told her. ‘Can we meet today? I need to talk about them with you before the weekend.’

‘OK, can you come to the office?’ asked Michelle.

‘No problem,’ said Jake. ‘Where is it?’

‘Villiers Street, just off the Strand.’

‘Fine,’ said Jake.

He took the address of the
Qo
offices from her, and arranged to meet her at 12.30.

They met in the foyer of the building, and they walked down to the small public gardens by the Embankment. Jake gave Michelle the list of sites at Glastonbury he’d marked, while she unpacked her lunch from a plastic box.

‘I’ve taken out all those that are on places that are too public, like the grounds of the abbey itself, or on National Trust land, or where buildings have been put up. All the others are on open land, most of them now farmland, and some of them parks that come under the local council.’

Michelle studied the list thoughtfully as she chewed her sandwich.

‘The problem is: what might happen once we start digging,’ said Jake. ‘We start doing it on public land, the council could turn up and stop us. We do it on private land and we could get caught by the landowner.’

‘That’s not a problem,’ said Michelle confidently. ‘Ignore the council-owned lands and concentrate on those where the land is owned privately. Most landowners are usually happy to let treasure hunters search their land for fifty per cent of the profit of whatever they find. Do you remember that Roman helmet they found in Cumbria recently?’

‘No,’ said Jake.

‘The farmer and the treasure hunter split the profits fifty-fifty,’ said Michelle. ‘The helmet sold for two million. Trust me, any farmer will be happy to let you dig up his land if he thinks there might be that kind of money at the end of it.’ She studied the list again. ‘We need to find out who these bits of land belong to and get in touch with them. Tell them we’re archaeological treasure hunters looking for stuff about King Arthur, and we’ll share the proceeds of anything we find.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘The trouble will be finding out who owns what. We need planning info, and that can take time.’

Suddenly Jake thought of Robert, Lauren’s cousin, the architect. He was always involved in planning issues.

‘I think I may know someone who can get that information,’ he said.

‘Before the weekend?’ queried Michelle.

‘Yes,’ said Jake.

He said this confidently, because he knew that Robert was almost as keen as he was to get Lauren back to England.

‘Good,’ said Michelle. She smiled. ‘We have a plan.’

Jake waited until Michelle had left to go back to her office before he phoned Robert.

‘Robert,’ he said, ‘it’s Jake.’

‘Jake! How are you?’ boomed Robert’s voice cheerfully in his ear. ‘Long time no speak!’

‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ Jake apologised. ‘I kept meaning to get in touch, but things seemed to keep turning up.’

‘No problem!’ said Robert. ‘We’re talking now.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Jake. ‘Actually, Robert, I wondered if we could meet up.’

Something in Jake’s tone must have alerted Robert that this wasn’t just a social call, because he hesitated before replying: ‘Yes, of course.’ Although his voice was just as cheerful as before, Jake could hear a note of caution in it, but knew that luckily Robert was smart enough not to blurt out anything over the phone. They’d already learnt that it was very easy for people to bug their phone conversations.

‘How about after work today?’ suggested Jake.

‘Excellent!’ said Robert. ‘You know the Pret a Manger in Oxford Street, the one at the Tottenham Court Road end?’

‘Yes,’ said Jake.

‘Half past five?’

‘Great,’ said Jake. ‘I’ll see you then.’

As he hung up, he thought: clever Robert. He’d worked out that whatever Jake wanted to talk to him about concerned Lauren, and they wouldn’t want their conversation overheard. So he’d chosen a nice but obvious location, a fairly noisy café, where any opposition would get there first to eavesdrop on them. And, once they’d met up, Jake and Robert would head elsewhere, to a place it would be difficult to have their conversation listened to. Not impossible — Jake had already discovered that conversations could be listened to any place anywhere, such was the power of modern surveillance technology. But at least he and Robert would make it difficult for any listeners.

Robert was waiting at Pret a Manger when Jake arrived.

‘Coffees?’ asked Jake.

‘Later,’ said Robert. ‘There’s this fabulous jazz CD I want to get first. We can grab a coffee afterwards.’

Jake followed Robert out of the coffee bar and they headed westwards along Oxford Street.

‘HMV,’ announced Robert. ‘We’ll try there first. If they haven’t got it, there’s a specialist shop I know in Soho we can try.’

As they walked, they talked, just like two old friends catching up. Which, of course, they were, but in this case their mutual point of contact was Lauren, and the hidden library of Malichea. Like Jake, Robert had been in contact with Lauren in New Zealand, Skyping and emailing.

‘She seems to be settling in there all right,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ agreed Jake, not wholly enthusiastically.

‘She misses you, though,’ said Robert.

‘Does she?’ said Jake, cheering up.

‘It’s a pity you can’t go over there and see her,’ said Robert.

Jake sighed.

‘The powers-that-be are determined that she and I will never be in the same country again,’ he said gloomily. ‘Not even on the same continent.’ Then he added in a whisper: ‘But I’ve got a plan to change that.’

‘I thought you might have,’ said Robert. ‘What is it?’

‘I’m going to find one of the books and go public with it. Once I’ve done that they won’t be able to keep the Order of Malichea secret, and they’ll let Lauren come back.’

Robert didn’t look convinced.

‘Are you sure of that?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘Pretty sure.’ Jake nodded. ‘After all, why are they keeping her in New Zealand? To stop her finding any of the books and letting the world know about them. So I’m going to do it for her.’

Robert thought it over as they walked, and finally he asked: ‘How?’

‘I’ve got a journalist on board who says she’ll run the story if we can find one of the books. And I’ve got a pretty strong idea I know where’s the best place to find one.’

‘Where?’

‘Glastonbury,’ said Jake.

Robert shook his head.

‘They’ll stop you,’ he said. ‘That character, Gareth Whateverhisname is.’

‘Findlay-Weston,’ said Jake. ‘And no he won’t, because I’m going to pretend to be looking for stuff about King Arthur and the Holy Grail.’

Robert still didn’t look convinced.

‘He won’t believe you,’ he said.

‘It’s worked so far,’ said Jake, and he told Robert how the connection didn’t go down when he mentioned King Arthur.

Robert frowned as he thought it over. By now they’d reached HMV, and Jake followed Robert into the store. The place was as crowded as ever, which Jake hoped would make the job of anybody listening to them harder.

‘It
might
work,’ Robert said, still doubtful.

‘Have you got a better idea how to get her back?’ asked Jake.

‘No,’ admitted Robert. ‘So, you want me to come and help you find this book?’

‘Actually, I wanted your help about getting permission to dig for it,’ said Jake. ‘You know, who owns which bit of land, that sort of thing. So we can contact the landowners and get permission.’

Jake looked around to make sure no one was paying too much attention to them, then passed Robert the short list with the names of the possible sites he’d selected. Robert studied the list.

‘Four of them,’ he said. ‘All farms.’

‘That’s right,’ said Jake.

‘When are you planning to go?’ he asked.

‘The sooner the better,’ said Jake. ‘This weekend. Spend the first day searching around, and some serious digging on the Sunday.’

Robert shook his head again.

‘You’re mad,’ he said. He tapped the list. ‘Some of these places will have hundreds of acres of ground, maybe thousands. You could dig for a year and not find anything.’

‘That’s why I was going to spend the first day checking the places out.’

‘And look for what — a big cross and a sign saying ‘“Dig here for ye ancient book”?’ commented Robert sarcastically.

Jake looked uncomfortable.

‘All right, it’s a big task, I’ll give you that,’ he admitted. ‘But have you got anything better?’

Robert grinned and stuffed the list into his inside pocket.

‘I certainly have,’ he said. ‘A sniffer dog.’

Jake looked at Robert, baffled.

‘A what?’ he asked.

‘A sniffer dog,’ repeated Robert. ‘One of the guys I play rugby with, Andy Beamish, is part of a search and rescue team, and he uses a sniffer dog to find things like people trapped under rubble, dead bodies, explosives and drugs, even pirate CDs. These dogs are amazing!’ Then his face clouded. ‘The trouble is, we’d need something with the scent for the dog to find.’ He let out a heavy sigh. ‘A pity you never kept the packet that last book was in. That would have been ideal! The smell of the oilskin, or whatever it was wrapped in.’

‘But I’ve got one!’ burst out Jake excitedly. Then he stopped himself and looked quickly around, but no one in the store seemed to react to his sudden outburst. He leant forward. ‘I’ve got one,’ he repeated excitedly, but this time in a whisper.

‘Where from?’ asked Robert, puzzled.

Jake told him about the ancient cover mysteriously appearing on his kitchen table.

‘And you’ve got no idea who put it there?’ asked Robert.

‘No,’ said Jake. He grinned. ‘But the main thing is, I’ve got it! And we can use it for this dog!’

‘Excellent,’ said Robert. ‘Right, I’ll get in touch with Andy and see if he’s free this weekend. I did have something arranged for Saturday, but I can change that.’

Jake frowned.

‘I didn’t expect you to come as well,’ he said. ‘Not after what happened last time, nearly getting yourself killed.’

Robert fixed Jake with a firm glare.

‘Are you expecting to get attacked again?’ he demanded.

‘Well . . . no,’ said Jake. ‘I hope not.’

‘Well, even if you were, you wouldn’t keep me away from this,’ Robert told him firmly. ‘Like you say, this could get Lauren back to England. And if so, I want to be part of it.’ He tapped his inside pocket where he’d put the list of places. ‘Right, I’d better start checking who the landowners are, and get on to them and get their permission to start digging.’ He grinned. ‘This could be brilliant!’

Chapter 9

After he left Robert, Jake phoned Michelle.

‘Good news,’ he told her. ‘The friend I was telling you about says he’ll sort out the digging permission for us. And also, he’s going to fix up a sniffer dog.’

‘A what?’ asked Michelle, puzzled.

‘A sniffer dog,’ repeated Jake. ‘He says the area we’re looking for is too large for us to have a chance with random digging, and if we’re serious about finding anything from King Arthur’s time, a sniffer dog will be just the thing we need.’

‘Excellent!’ said Michelle. ‘I’ll bring a camera. If we find anything it’ll go a long way to backing up our story.’

‘Good idea,’ said Jake.

‘Oh, by the way, a change of plan,’ said Michelle. ‘Has your friend got transport?’