Jake Conley Mysteries Collection - Books 5-7

Chapter 7

Alice had driven them down to Warwickshire; to even things out, Jake had driven the return journey. When he entered the town centre in Louth, he surprised Alice by pulling up in Little Butcher Lane.

“The owner of this café says he makes the best coffee for miles around. I think we’d better put him to the test, darling.”

“Good idea. I’m desperate for a decent coffee.”

Having ordered the drinks, his attention strayed to a copy of the local paper the Louth Leader lying on the next table. There was going to be a Duck Race down the River Bain in July; it was an annual event. His eyes shifted down to the next article and he snatched up the paper.

Louth LeaderMusic Teacher’s Office Ransacked

Music Teacher’s Office RansackedThere was only going to be one Maria Perri in Louth, no question about that. It was the name of the tenant of their flat now in Wales. A glance at Alice, a gulp of his scalding coffee and they were on their way to their rented property. The mess of books and papers on the floor told him that a search of the property had been made. Alice’s portable computer had not been stolen, so he concluded, not a thief, but an investigator prying into their affairs. Jake, who knew about these things, checked her computer to see when it was last opened. As he expected, 4.07 a.m. last night.

Answering a knock on the door, he came face to face with their landlord.

“I hope they haven’t taken anything, Mr Copley. I reported the break-in to the police myself and it’s already splashed across the local newspaper. I came around this morning to tell you about rubbish collection. When there was no answer, I peered through the window and saw the place had been turned over. I let myself in, but there was no damage. I hope you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

“I wonder if you’d mind calling in at the police station to let them know nothing’s been taken?”

“Leave it to me, Mr Bell.”

When their fussy landlord had gone, Alice and Jake considered their situation as they put everything back in its place. They agreed that there was no coincidence regarding the shooting at the cottage and this attempt to find…what? Jake was inclined to think that the intruder was looking for the small bone box and its contents that he’d taken to Warwickshire.

When they had finished tidying the flat, they discussed everything that had happened since they entered the Ministry together.

Whilst Jake went to the police station to make his statement, Alice decided to do a little historical research and got to thinking about the old woman and how she could find out something about her. She surfed the Internet to find out about late eighteenth-century newspapers. In those days there were few newspapers in circulation: The Morning Chronicle, The Morning Post, The Morning Herald and an evening paper called The Star. Then, there was The Daily Universal Register, which lasted from, she discovered, 1785 until 1787, then it became known as The Times. So, she searched for archives of that paper and the early years of The Times. She could scarcely believe it, but the only way she found to consult one of Britain’s historical newspapers was to take out a subscription on her credit card with an American university. Her detective work cost her twenty-five dollars. Then she fed Covenham St. Mary into the internal search engine of The Daily Universal Register and … Bingo! On the screen appeared:

The Morning ChronicleThe Morning PostThe Morning HeraldThe Star. The Daily Universal RegisterThe TimesThe TimesThe Daily Universal RegisterBingo!No civilized nation has to lament, as we have, the daily commission of the most atrocious crimes, inasmuch as we cannot sleep in our houses without the most imminent danger of thieves and robbers. When vice is tempted by the certainty of gain it will have recourse to every expedient to indulge its depraved propensities: we have the most recent and deplorable instance of an unfortunate defenceless spinster, victim of these plunderers of the public. Miss Agnes Monson, 85 years old, was found on the 20th current, her heart fail’d at the sight of malefactors in her home, Rose Cottage, in Covenham St. Mary in the County of Lincoln. Your humble correspondent can only express his opprobrium at the lack of efficiency on the part of parochial law enforcement, for while our watch committees, commissioners and vestries fail to ensure adequate incentives for diligence, the sleeping watchmen lie beatific in their dormitories. The poor woman’s house was ransack’d, little doubt the scoundrels were cognizant of her reputed wealth. A subject of much wonder and ferment among her neighbours was the finding of the deceased with her finger resting upon a passage of the New Testament: precisely on John 14:3 I will come again. The most fever’d and superstitious imaginings abound, some indeed speculating that the deceased will have no repose until the guilty are apprehended and brought to justice.

No civilized nation has to lament, as we have, the daily commission of the most atrocious crimes, inasmuch as we cannot sleep in our houses without the most imminent danger of thieves and robbers. When vice is tempted by the certainty of gain it will have recourse to every expedient to indulge its depraved propensities: we have the most recent and deplorable instance of an unfortunate defenceless spinster, victim of these plunderers of the public. Miss Agnes Monson, 85 years old, was found on the 20th current, her heart fail’d at the sight of malefactors in her home, Rose Cottage, in Covenham St. Mary in the County of Lincoln. Your humble correspondent can only express his opprobrium at the lack of efficiency on the part of parochial law enforcement, for while our watch committees, commissioners and vestries fail to ensure adequate incentives for diligence, the sleeping watchmen lie beatific in their dormitories. The poor woman’s house was ransack’d, little doubt the scoundrels were cognizant of her reputed wealth. A subject of much wonder and ferment among her neighbours was the finding of the deceased with her finger resting upon a passage of the New Testament: precisely on John 14:3 I will come againI will come again The most fever’d and superstitious imaginings abound, some indeed speculating that the deceased will have no repose until the guilty are apprehended and brought to justice.R.H. Covenham St. Mary

R.H. Covenham St. MaryAlice read quickly, by now, Jake had returned and she leant on his shoulder, her light perfume going to his head, bittersweet to him. He murmured, “So Agnes Monson was the ghost Roy Robinson saw.”

“Which brings us back to the bone box with the little scroll inside.” He took the said paper from his pocket and handed it to Alice who re-read the two lines of fading handwriting. As she studied the words, he said, “You, who are so good at detective work. See what you can do with that.”

She shook her head. “It’s something from the Bible, we said.”

“Right, I established it was Psalm 68:13, King James’s Version.”

“Did you read the whole Psalm?”

“Not yet, I haven’t had time, thanks to the intruder, but somehow I don’t think it’ll help. I’ll check it out now.”

“Well, it must mean something. And it must be something important if they want it that badly.” Alice’s tone was cool and logical and he appreciated it.

He closed the Bible and sniffed. “As I thought. Those lines were extrapolated for a purpose. The rest of the psalm holds no significance for me.”

“I’ll see what I can do with those few lines Jake.”

“I agree that the clue is in the verse itself.” Jake cupped his chin in his hand, “We should try to understand what it means. Is it possible that there’s a treasure is in the form of a dove made of silver and gold? That wouldn’t be a bad find, would it?”

“If it’s large, it’d be worth a lot of money and if it’s small I’ll just wear it as a brooch.” Alice laughed. “So, the dove must be lying among some pots then?”

“Yeah, but that’s not much to go on is it? Unless there used to be a pottery in Covenham St. Mary, say in the eighteenth century.”

“Why the eighteenth? I’d say much earlier. This writing must be at least 1600.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I studied archaeology at university and I know a thing or two about history, and calligraphy if it comes to that. And didn’t your retrocognition take you to the Civil War? ”

She gazed around the small music school, only big enough to take a piano and a desk, and once more chose not to tell Jake that she had been her father’s desperation. That could wait. Despite Mr Harrop’s reasoned explanations that archaeology wouldn’t put bread on her table, and his long-suffering references to balance sheets, their discussions always ended with him shouting at his daughter and regretting it afterwards. One day, she’d tell Jake how she’d entered the Secret Service; he hadn’t been inquisitive about her past and she appreciated it. She snapped out of her reverie and said,

“Maybe there was an excavation and they found some pots and the dove.”

Jake thought about that. “Hang on. Perhaps this wasn’t a question of finding the dove, more a question of hiding it. So, the ghost or someone in her family must have hidden the dove among the pots.”

As a plan, they searched for potteries in the area of Covenham in the seventeenth century. There were plenty of modern-day potteries in Lincolnshire, even nearby, but nothing came up for the period they were interested in. There were references to the sandy-grey Torksey ware of the Middle Ages or to Lincoln pottery from the same period. They considered both possibilities, but it didn’t seem likely that Torksey would be the answer, because it was more than forty miles away from Covenham. Given the difficulties of travelling in the past, it seemed certain that they were looking for a place much nearer to Rose Cottage. Jake read the passage out loud again:

“Though ye have lein…” This must be archaic for lain,” he said, …among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.”

“Though ye have lein…” lainamong the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.”They talked it over for some time, but made no further progress, before deciding to go to The Golden Fleece just around the corner on Kidgate: convenient since they needed the whole evening ahead to make some inroads into the intractable conundrum. Alice went over to the window and drew back the net curtain. As far as she could tell there was nobody suspicious-looking down there. She locked the flat and they walked the short distance keeping a watchful eye open for an oversized homicidal chauffeur.

In the pub, and lost in thought, Jake chewed his cheese and ham, not really tasting it. She sipped her beer and took another bite of her salmon sandwich, savouring her food. When they went back to the small music school, Jake went straight to the computer, but all he could do was sit and stare at the screen. Alice, instead, sat at the piano and began to play the Scherzo from Schubert’s Trout Quintet. She played it very well before stopping and pointing at Jake.

ScherzoTrout Quintet“What?”

“What was it you said? Archaic? Sure, that’s it!” She leapt off her stool and joined him at the computer. She clicked the arrow at the top left of the screen and returned to the search engine. “You know what? There are lots of versions of the Bible and this one was written in King James’s reign. He came to the throne in 1603, so the English is archaic, let’s get a more modern version of the same thing.” She clicked on the New American Standard Bible, published in 1995. “I was right,” a smile lit up her face and Jake thought she was more beautiful than any woman he knew, apart from Liffi. He smothered the treasonable thought and said, I didn’t know you could play the piano so well.”

Archaic“There’s a lot you don’t know about me. But let’s concentrate on the matter in hand.”

She read out:

When you lie down among the sheepfolds,

When you lie down among the sheepfolds,When you lie down among the sheepfolds,You are like the wings of a dove covered with silver,

You are like the wings of a dove covered with silver,You are like the wings of a dove covered with silver,And its pinions with glistening gold.

And its pinions with glistening gold.And its pinions with glistening gold.“Sheepfolds! My little genius. That changes everything.” He stroked her hair leaving Alice torn between a feminist protest and simple pleasure.

Sheepfolds!“We’ve been wasting our time.” He added, “We’re not looking for old pots anymore; we’re looking for a sheepfold that predates 1700, where someone hid the dove. That’s more like it!” he enthused, then, quenched, added: “but there must have been quite a lot of them at that time. We’ll need an old map of Covenham and a spade. Have you got a spade?”

It was meant to be a facetious remark, but Alice looked troubled. “Listen, I’m not going to do anything illegal. I think the next thing we should do before we go looking for old maps, is to find out what the legal position is. We don’t want to end up in court, because we’ve taken something that isn’t ours.” She typed British Law – Treasure Trove into the search engine and what they read cheered them both. The law had been changed on 24 September, 1997. Thanks to the surge in treasure hunters using metal detectors the government had got rid of the previous provisions, where treasure trove was the property of the monarch if it had been buried with the intention of recovery. “That would have been this case,” he said with unfounded certainty, “so the dove would have gone straight to the Queen.”

British Law – Treasure TroveThe law now stated that objects at least three hundred years old containing a substantial amount of silver and gold (and hoards of coins) must be reported within fourteen days. There was a penalty of five thousand pounds or three months in jail, or both, for failing to do so. When a museum wished to acquire an item declared treasure by a coroner, the finder would be paid a reward based on its market value.

“Wow.” Alice clapped her hands. “If we find the dove, we declare it at once and then we either get to keep it or they give us the money that it’s worth. Cool. It’s all quite legal. So, all we have to do is find the dove.”

“All we have to do. Dead easy, but you didn’t notice Article twenty-nine paragraph one. We have to get permission from the landowner; otherwise, anything we find goes to him. We’ll have to find out who he is—small detail, once we’ve found out where the sheepfold is. What now? Old maps of Covenham St. Mary, maybe?”

It was getting late.

“That’s about all we can do for this evening. I’ll see about the map tomorrow.”

“Let’s carry on as normal, but take some precautions. Even if someone finds the box, it’s empty. Only we know about the psalm. So, I’m going to burn the piece of paper and you’re going to clean the chronology on the computer right now.”

“I hear and obey oh mighty master.” She smirked and turned to the computer.

Jake smiled to himself, but she turned back and caught his expression. He wiped it off his face and her large eyes looked quizzical.

“Nothing.” This young woman wasn’t just pretty she was smart too and she could play the piano. What else didn’t he know about her?

“I was just thinking, maybe I should try to get to know you better, much better.”

With less-than-chaste thoughts in his mind, he wandered to the window and drew the curtains. With his head full of thoughts about his wife, the scrupulous Jake didn’t notice the man across the road wearing a checked sports jacket and crepe-soled shoes, standing by a car, feigning innocence.