The Magna Carta Murders (The Ralph Chamers Mysteries Book 12) Read online

  The party waited for their driver. As Ralph stood there and watched the goings on, a man whom he assumed was the hotel manager or the maitre’d, walked up and stood next to him.

  “We had to substitute the Captain at the last minute,” he said quietly, almost whispering as though he and Ralph were involved in some conspiracy. “The new man should be here any moment now. Sorry about the delay.”

  “No problem. Everyone seems to be enjoying the evening and it’s a lovely setting.”

  “Captain Jenkins worked for the Thames Police before he retired; unlike Jimmy to be late like this.”

  “It happens,” said Ralph.

  Just then a man walked past and helped Miranda and her guests board the boat. Ralph watched as they cast off and maneuvered, closer than Ralph deemed safe, towards the bank on the other side of the river. Then, to his amazement, the man at the wheel threw himself into the water and started swimming to the far bank. Ralph could see a car parked on the other side and two men stood ready to help the other man out of the water.

  Instinctively Ralph looked around. He saw the waiter who had been arguing with the burly man in the boat earlier. He held something that looked like one of the hand controllers that kids use to direct robot cars. Suddenly Ralph was on high alert. Operating purely on instinct, he sprinted the 30 or so yards up the sloping lawn and barreled into the man and the controller went flying into the rhododendron bushes. He scrambled to his feet and ran back down to the river’s edge.

  Across the river, the car and the three men had made their escape. Katie had taken over the hotel’s boat and he watched as she expertly brought it alongside the jetty and threw a rope to a waiting policeman. A very agitated hotel manager helped Miranda and her guests ashore.

  “Are you all right, Katie?” Ralph gasped.

  “Well I think so, but what the hell’s going on? That bugger just jumped ship.”

  “I think they planned to blow the damn thing up using some remote device.”

  As he looked around he saw the man he had shoulder charged being led away by the policeman who had helped secure the boat and another of his colleagues.

  “Well you two seem to be the dream team,” said Miranda. “Whatever had been planned, you certainly seem to have been on to it. Mind you, I think you could have warned me. Still, all’s well that ends well, as they say. Let’s just go in to supper and try to resume some semblance of normalcy; I think we’ve all had enough excitement for one day.”

  Just then Ralph felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Commander Renton.

  “You beat us to it again, Professor. We knew they had something planned. My men were just about to move in when we saw you shoulder charge our target.”

  Ralph bit his lip hard to stop himself uttering a retort as the Commander shouted instructions to his officers.

  “Get that boat moved somewhere safe. The Army explosives unit are on their way. Probably the thing’s packed with the stuff, so go careful until they get here.”

  The Commander turned to the junior officer on his left and told him to get on the radio and have road blocks set up on the M25.

  “My guess is that the buggers’ll try to get to Heathrow or Gatwick Airport,” he said to the same man. “And Peters get on to the Royal Family Protection Unit and tell them what’s happened here. With Her Majesty in residence, there’ll be a fuss about this lot taking place so near the Castle. It’s a good job we were here to contain it.”

  “Katie and I would like to go in to supper now, Commander,” Ralph said. It was not a question.

  Ralph was livid. The Commander had brushed him aside and practically suggested that he might have almost been interfering in police work.

  “Oh, you two go ahead; we’ll clear up this lot. Oh, and thanks; good work. We’ll need a statement from both of you. I’ll get Inspector Linham to take care of that; save you coming up to London.” With that he walked off while instructing his men about screening off the area and getting statements from the guests who were on the boat.

  Same old Renton, thought Ralph as they walked towards the hotel restaurant.

  “You certainly know how to give a girl a good day out, Ralph Chalmers,” Katie whispered. “Next time I’ll remember to bring my evening dress and a swim suit.”

  “You’re top drawer Katie. No two ways about it. I don’t know what Miranda and her cronies would’ve done if it’d been down to them to get back across the river. Let’s go in to supper, and I wouldn’t say no to a nice stiff drink.”

  “Why not,” Katie agreed. “Make mine a double orange juice.”

  “Might as well go all out,” Ralph agreed. “My side hurts where I hit that bloke,” Ralph said as he held onto Katie’s hand with one of his and held his side with the other. “I wonder if I broke a rib.”

  “Don’t be such a wimp, Ralph. Come on; I’m starving. We can worry about that later. Let Renton sort it out. He needs to do something to earn his paycheque.”

  Ralph knew she was right.

  After supper everyone went out onto the lawns to watch the fireworks display from across the river. As the rockets and noise filled the air and the onlookers gasped as the sky lit up, Ralph grasped Katie’s hand. A cold shiver went down his spine. If Mankovich was behind all of this, he really was a swine. He couldn’t have known that Katie would be aboard, but he knew there would be innocent people. It was the closest Ralph had come to losing her. It strengthened his resolve to stop Mankovich.

  ___________________

  Chapter 4

  Ralph had gone to see Inspector Linham to make a statement about the Runnymede incident as Renton had requested. He had been surprised to see Colonel Stigart as he was shown into Linham’s office. Over tea he made a formal report which also served to give the Colonel a full update.

  “For your information, Ralph it turned out that the man you tackled was an employee who had been told that the controller was simply a device that operated the lights across the lawns. He’d been told to go out and turn them out when the fireworks started so the people could see the display. Then he was meant to turn them back on again when it finished. By the way, you broke the poor man’s arm, but I don’t think he’s going to sue you. Commander Renton’s just pleased that he didn’t kill anyone; albeit unwittingly.”

  “But I thought you just said that the man only wanted to switch the lights off and on,” Ralph replied with a puzzled look on his face.

  “That’s right. But evidently someone switched the remotes. The one he had was going to switch a lot more off than the lights.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Army chaps said that there were enough explosives on board to destroy the boat and anyone within 50 yards. They obviously intended to kill the waiter that they’d duped into using the controller. The absent staff member who usually operates the boat, Jack Jenkins, was found unconscious in his flat a few miles down the road. He’d been severely beaten. Whoever was behind the plot must’ve forced him to phone and say he wasn’t coming in. The Commander tells me that they haven’t yet found the three men involved in the boating incident.”

  “But why did they target the ABA people, Colonel?” Ralph asked.

  “It’s not confirmed yet, but we believe that it’s to do with a court case that’s due to start in New York later this month. The FBI tell us that two of the District Attorney’s prosecutors and a judge who’s been appointed to try the case were in Miranda Warren’s party at Runnymede. According to our Home Office’s liaison man two of the syndicate’s top people are sweating it out in a New York jail awaiting trial. My guess is that they’re either part of or closely linked to this Mankovich and his Elias Factor organization.”

  “So you don’t think this incident at Runnymede was a diversionary tactic to get hold of the Magna Carta at Salisbury?” Linham interjected.

  “We’re not sure about that angle; but I’m convinced that Mankovich is behind all of it,” said Stigart.

  The Colonel went on to expound his views abou
t Mankovich. He explained that his theory was that Mankovich had set out to steal the Salisbury manuscript when it was on exhibit in London, but when that mission failed, he decided to target Runnymede.

  “Most of the key players in the New York trial were at the event, and he may have thought that it would send a severe warning to anyone who was thinking of testifying or to any potential jurors. Now that that too has failed, he’ll most likely give up on scare tactics and concentrate on his core business: drugs and prostitution.”

  Ralph was not convinced that Stigart had got it right. He did not know this Mankovich, but he did not sound like a man who was likely to just ‘give up’, as the Colonel had put it; and he had not forgotten that Katie had been on the boat that was the intended target.

  Ralph told Stigart that James Radnor had left just before the boating party set off and that Miranda Warren had told them that the boat trip was his idea. The Colonel made a note, but reiterated his views about it all being coincidence. He pointed out that James Radnor had been thoroughly vetted while he was working on the Magna Carta Project with the ABA.

  “And besides, there’s no motive,” Stigart added.

  Ralph saw Inspector Linham raise his eyebrows ever so slightly, on hearing the words ‘no motive’.

  “So you think that this business is now concluded, Colonel?” Asked the Inspector. Ralph detected a slightly quizzical note in Linham’s voice.

  “I’d like to think that if Mankovich and his lot were behind all of this that they’ll retire with a ‘bloody nose.’ There’s still the murder of the T24 courier and the man who jumped ship from the launch at Runnymede, as well as his two pals, but I think we can stand down and leave the rest to Commander Renton. What do you think, Professor?”

  “I’m not sure. I still have a feeling that Mankovich will try to get at that manuscript. My guess is that he’ll go after the one at Salisbury Cathedral now that he has everyone focused on finding those people who were at Runnymede.”

  “But why that particular one?” Asked Linham. “They’re each worth about 20 million or so. Surely any one of the four would do.”

  “It’s the Elias tag. We know that particular manuscript was the one that Elias of Dereham took to Old Sarum after it was sealed at Runnymede. And I read that Elias supervised the building of Salisbury Cathedral after they moved from Old Sarum. Mankovich must have had a reason for choosing the moniker for his organisation. My guess, as I told the Colonel, is that he’s either a madman or else he’s worked out how valuable it would be to ransom. Perhaps he wants to use it as a bargaining tool with the Americans to stop the trial.”

  “Steady on, Ralph,” Stigart interjected. “I admire your show of imagination, but I think that you might have been watching one too many American films. I don’t think that in real life the American legal system works like that.”

  “Just throwing out a few ideas, Colonel.”

  “Quite. It’s always good to toss some ideas in the pot. Shall we agree, then, that the game’s still on? You carry on keeping an eye on things, Ralph, and I’ll keep close to the Americans. Let’s get together in a few weeks and compare notes. Mankovich must be pretty sore at how things have turned out. So watch your back Professor. We’re dealing with a pretty calculating and vicious man in our Mr Mankovich.” They chatted on for a while before Ralph made his excuses and left. He was teaching that afternoon.

  ***

  Ralph sat in his apartment and nursed his bruised ribs. His attempt to run it off had only aggravated the situation. He had tried a gentle swim, but even a session in the steam room and a spell in the Jacuzzi provided no relief. His pals at the gym had simply suggested that he was out of condition and that he probably needed to think about slowing down; a few had ruder theories about why his ribs still ached. The newspapers had reported the incident at Runnymede but all they said was that an unidentified man had tackled an employee at the hotel, whom he’d mistaken for a terrorist.

  He had found the week more difficult than usual. Most of his students were keen, but for reasons he could not fathom, other groups seemed disaffected. On the Monday he had lost his temper and berated a student at the back of the lecture hall who was texting on his mobile during the lecture. Then the Dean had wanted a report on how things were going with Milton’s and the ABA people. Ralph had put together a short memo that Granger had shot off with to the VC. Ralph just hoped that he could deliver some concrete leads.

  He lay back in his chair and listened to a recording of The Bartered Bride that had been taped at a live performance that he and Katie had attended in Budapest. She had given the CD to him for his birthday. A more vivid recollection was that they had been attacked in the Hungarian capitol while working on another of Stigart’s projects. The money’ was good, Ralph reflected, but did he really need it? He wondered if it was vanity, or possibly just a chance to get into a good old fashioned brawl that kept him going back for more. He forced his mind to move on to more pleasant topics. He thought about his recent successes in his age division triathlons and rowing. He had a charity swim coming up the following month between the Hampton Court and Kingston bridges. He decided that he was just going through a slump, the ‘Black Dog’ days, as Churchill called them, he mused. He reached for a beer and leaned back in his chair and let the music wash over him. He had just begun to relax when the ring of the telephone pulled him out of his reverie. It had just gone ten o’clock.

  “Ralph,” said the woman’s voice as soon as he picked up.

  “Katie?”

  “No, it’s Cynthia. I know it’s late, but I tried you at the College earlier and left a message on your phone.”

  “No that’s all right, Cynthia. I forgot to check my voice mail. What’s up?”

  “Well it’s just that I’m going up to see some people at the British Library tomorrow afternoon about a problem I’m having with some cataloguing. It’s a bit short notice I know, but I wondered if you might want to tag along.”

  “Thanks, but what’s it about?”

  “Sorry. It’s just that I remembered that you told us how much you enjoyed seeing the Magna Carta manuscripts at the exhibition, and I thought you might enjoy having a chat with the people who look after the two they have over there.”

  “I’d love to if I’m free. Can you hold on a minute while I check my diary?”

  Ralph went and flipped through the old fashioned black leather diary that he still relied on instead of the high tech app on his Iphone.

  “Yes, that sounds great Cynthia. Where shall I meet you?” He said when he came back on the line.

  “9.30 at Paccar Gallery, on the Euston Road. It’s just down from St Pancras station. You’ll know it.”

  “I’ll be there, Cynthia, and thanks. Tell Lance to stop working you so hard now you’re going to be a Mum.”

  “Don’t you start, Ralph. I have enough trouble with him as it is. See you tomorrow. Give my love to Katie.”

  Ralph sat back. So the plot unravels, he mused. I wonder how they’ll react if I broach the subject of someone trying to swap a fake for the one at Salisbury Cathedral. He reached for a notepad then remembered that if he was going to be in London by 9.30 it meant getting the early commuter train from Surbiton. He would need an early start if he wanted to get in his morning run before it was time to leave for the station.

  ***

  The 08.15 from Basingstoke was always packed by the time it arrived at Surbiton for the 18 minute journey to Waterloo. The platform was crowded, and as the train approached he felt someone shove him from behind. He braced himself and managed to push back just as the train passed. He could see the startled look on the driver’s face. A suicide or a fall on the tracks was every train driver’s worst nightmare. The doors opened with a swish of the pneumatic locking device and he was swept aboard by the mob. He looked around for the culprit, but apart from a florid-faced man holding a container of coffee and clutching a cell phone, they all looked like normal commuters. Too much time thinking about Mankovich, h
e mused. I’m becoming paranoid. How would anyone know that I would be on platform 1 at Surbiton at this exact time? He wondered. And whoever it was, did they also know that I was bound for the British Library? He almost laughed as he imagined Katie’s reaction if she could read his thoughts right then. He found a corner by the doors and tried to distract his mind from studying his fellow travelers. In 15 minutes he would be out in the fresh air.

  The security at the Paccar Gallery was stricter than he had expected. As he filled in the forms as to why he was there, Cynthia walked in.

  “Ralph, I’m glad you could make it,” she said as she gave him a quick peck on the cheek before she turned to the security guard. Today she was in work mode: tweed suit and sensible shoes and those horned rimmed glasses. “Good morning. We’re here to see Doctor Martha Wilkes, Head of Medieval Manuscripts. We’ve an appointment for 9.30.” She smiled at the man and Ralph noticed the immediate transformation. One minute she was the bespectacled, slightly harridan museum curator, then the specs come off and she was all charm.

  “Second floor. Dr Wilkes is in Room 5. Please remember to wear your ID badges at all times and return them when you leave. If you would.”

  Cynthia thanked him with another smile. They made their way to Doctor Wilkes office where she was in a meeting with the Curator of Modern manuscripts, Brendan Ogilvy. Cynthia introduced Ralph and explained that he was interested in finding out a bit more about the Magna Carta manuscripts for a project he was doing with the American Bar Association. Ralph had barely managed to explain to Cynthia about the ABA as they were coming up in the lift. He was impressed with how quickly she had assimilated the information and then relayed it flawlessly to Doctor Wilkes and her curator. He had been around her primarily in social settings where she acted more like a party-girl than the very competent Museum Curator that she was, but now she was on full throttle work mode. He sat back as the three professionals talked over several issues that Cynthia had raised over the provenance of some documents that had been discovered in the basement of Dorich House, the Kingston University Museum, during renovation works. They drank copious cups of tea and Ralph occupied his time studying the pictures that adorned the spacious office. After about an hour Cynthia turned to Ralph.