The Cromwell Deception Page 6

  The paintings were safely concealed in the boot. The man with the falcon tattoo was assigned to guard Megan back in London.

  Cooper knew exactly where they were going. Alain followed the directions of the satnav and took the A40 west past Wembley and the White City onto the M40, heading into the Midlands.

  The journey had been surprisingly easy. Alain left the M40 near Banbury and followed the A422 into a tiny hamlet in the south of Warwickshire.

  The site, once upon a time, of a great battle.

  Cooper had visited the hamlet of Edgehill on many occasions in the last six years. Nestled in the parish of Ratley and Upton, it was the type of place that oozed charm and beauty even in the gloomy weather.

  The journey had mostly passed in silence, not that Cooper minded. Anything was better than making small talk with his captors. He already knew exactly why he was here. He knew his history, and Edgehill’s was as famous as any from the Civil War. The first battle of the war in 1642 had been characterised by inexperienced, ill-disciplined forces, severe looting from both camps, and a result that neither side could claim.

  Visually it was a picture. It could have been any area of countryside in England. Wheat and barley crossed the vale in the distance, while the fields that made up the site itself were characterised by arable and animal farmland. Trees and hedges flanked the main field along its perimeter, forming a natural rectangular shape that coincided with the way it was marked on the map. If the map was correct, the road that led through the hamlet was still a considerable walk away, requiring a hike through woodland and across farmland.

  Alain parked on the left side of the main road, in between a large inn and a series of houses. “You stay here, guard the paintings,” François had said to him on arrival.

  “You,” he barked at Cooper. “Out.”

  11

  Gillian and Nat returned to the CCTV room and rewound the video to the point where the intruders began examining the Hesilrige Portrait. The footage had been on pause for over five minutes. The frozen frame had perfectly captured the moment when the intruder with the torch saw the hidden writing for the first time but even on the maximum zoom, the words were illegible.

  Gillian had no doubt the intruders had no such problem.

  She reread the text on the jpeg, concentrating on two lines in particular.

  Its location is known to no other…only that I have left instruction at the fields of the three great battles of our time.

  Her gut instinct was that the message was genuine. The sentence structure, use of words, cursive handwriting and primitive spelling were all telltale signs.

  But more importantly, the message had been signed and dated. The signature was one of the most famous of all historical signatures.

  She recognised it the moment she saw it.

  Nat was sitting on the right side of the desk, next to Gillian. It was obvious to him that Gillian was in over her head.

  “I never knew you were able to read 17th-century English,” Gillian said, looking at him.

  Nat appeared baffled. “On the contrary. It was actually myself who made the discovery in the first place. Of course, I did have Mr Cliff and Mr Cooper to assist.” He felt awkward saying Cooper’s name.

  Gillian smiled. In truth she was partially relieved. Thanks to a combination of the CCTV record and the results of the x-ray and infrared tests, she now knew exactly what Cooper and his accomplice were looking for.

  And where.

  “Perhaps we could start from the beginning,” she said, rising to her feet and pacing in front of the desk. “Tell me everything you discovered.”

  “Well, the passage, as you can see, was written by Oliver Cromwell. It’s dated 10 August 1658, less than a month before his death on 3 September. The style of the artist seems to confirm both the original and the replacement were almost certainly works by the famed Robert Walker. That being so, it means the painting of Hesilrige is actually some eighteen years younger than we had initially assumed.”

  “You consider that important?”

  Nat could sense she was getting agitated. “As a matter of fact, I would consider it highly important. Knowing the year in which the portrait was painted makes it infinitely easier to confirm authenticity.”

  Fair enough. “So Cromwell was originally painted holding the crown of England. The very thing history recalls he spent the latter years of his life trying to destroy.” She eyed Nat suspiciously. “You really think it’s still out there?”

  “Well, the only thing we can say with any real degree of certainty is that the message indicates exactly that. Yet exactly why he did this, we can only speculate. On the one hand, it might be considered to support the argument that Cromwell wanted to be king.”

  “But he later turned it down.”

  “Later, yes. However, we know for a fact he spent six weeks thinking about it before eventually deciding to decline.”

  “Of course, keeping the jewels might have been considered prudent on his part.” Gillian folded her arms. “If the tables turned and the Royalists gathered their strength, his possession of the jewels could have been considered a bargaining chip.”

  Nat nodded. “Furthermore, he might have considered the security of his family equally important. Should the tables turn and Oliver himself be put on trial for treason, it seems particularly probable his assets would have been frozen. The ability to pawn the jewels would have at least given him and his family an escape route.”

  “So in 1658, with death imminent, he hid them?”

  “No. The message suggests the hiding came earlier, March 1649. It’s perfectly simple. Before he died, Cromwell sent a message to his next of kin confirming the exact whereabouts of the key pieces.”

  “Key pieces?”

  “Of course. The Crown jewels of England consisted of far more than just one crown. There was the crown of Queen Edith, the wife of Edward the Confessor; the Tudor state crown, first used by Henry VII; the crown of Alfred the Great; orbs; sceptres; rings. And perhaps most valuable of all, the diadem of Edward the Confessor.”

  Gillian put her hands to her face and brushed vigorously through her hair. The diadem of Edward the Confessor, she remembered reading about it once before. Apparently at the height of the First Barons’ War that began shortly after his renouncing of the Magna Carta, King John, whilst taking a shortcut across The Wash where Norfolk meets Lincolnshire, lost his entire baggage train in a freak tide. Since then, every King of England until Charles I was crowned with the diadem of St Edward.

  “How valuable is it, in your opinion?”

  Nat shrugged. “Receipts at the time for the supposed sale of the jewels were really rather modest. In the modern day, for the jewellery alone we could be talking a minimum of £4m.”

  “In historical terms, priceless,” Gillian said, starting to understand Cooper’s fascination. Value aside, she knew the message had the potential to act as a catalyst for something far more substantial.

  A once in a lifetime occurrence.

  She caught her reflection in the glass of one of the monitors and noticed her hair had become dishevelled. She brushed her fingers through it, her eyes returning momentarily to the paused image of the theft.

  “How much would Cooper have known about the tests?” she asked.

  “As I say, he was directly involved in the entire process. He even participated in our attempts to locate them.”

  Gillian shot him a look of disbelief. “You tried to find them?”

  “Of course. We were all involved.” He saw that Gillian’s expression had become ever more piercing. “Why not? Why wouldn’t you look for something when it’s described in such detail?”

  Gillian was lost for words. “What happened? And don’t you dare cut any details.”

  Nat spoke for several minutes, cataloguing how Cooper, Cliff and himself had spent several weekends over the previous six years investigating the battlefields of Edgehill, Naseby and Marston Moor.

  The sites of the
three great battles of the war.

  “Of course, undertaking the task wasn’t exactly what we had anticipated,” Nat continued. “Carrying out a complete search of those battlefields would take thousands of man-hours. We centred our search on the main areas.”

  “When did you give up?”

  “January.”

  Eight months ago. She disguised her inability to respond by clearing her throat. She guessed from Nat’s expression he knew exactly what she was thinking.

  “Get Daniel and Edmund in here. Right now.”

  12

  Edmund Hawkins and Daniel Cliff were both present five minutes later. The security chief’s demeanour had seemingly relaxed in the last hour, whereas Cliff was still feeling uptight about the portraits’ disappearance.

  Or Cooper’s betrayal.

  Edmund read the passage as it appeared on the printout, understanding some of it but not all. The printed text was small, despite the zoom; he requested a magnifying glass to read it. After spending more than a minute persisting in trying to make sense of its meaning, he placed the glass down on the side of the desk and passed the printout to Cliff.

  Unlike himself, Cliff had seen it all before.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Cliff said, agitated. “Why would Andrew steal this? He’s researched it in detail. The findings of the x-ray and the infrared tests were well known to him.”

  Gillian was sceptical. “On the contrary, it actually makes perfect sense. Cooper was interested in the jewels. When the Van Dyck became available, he chose his moment carefully. Figuring he had little or no prospect of taking that without getting caught, he took the Hesilrige as well. It was his one chance.”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Edmund said.

  “I suppose he might still harbour the hope further research of the portrait could throw up additional clues.”

  “But why wait for the Van Dyck?” Cliff asked. “He’s had six years to steal something else. There are other valuable works.”

  “I guess you’d have to ask Mr Cooper.”

  Mr Cooper. Everyone present noticed the emphasis. It was as if Gillian was speaking of a stranger.

  “Why was none of this made public?” Gillian asked. “I’m guessing your little escapade created a drawbridge mentality.”

  Nat smiled philosophically. “Firstly, I think it’s essential you understand the scope of the find. The Crown jewels, as we have already discussed, are not only valuable in money terms, but where history is concerned, they are, frankly, one of a kind. Imagine if people knew: the location of the lost jewels described in detail. There would be pandemonium. A mammoth treasure hunt. It would be like the Klondike gold rush, only in the Midlands.”

  Gillian smiled wryly, accepting he had a point. “How come no official investigation has been made till now?”

  Nat and Cliff exchanged awkward glances.

  “Come on, gentlemen, I’m dying to know.”

  “Would you care to take this one?” Nat asked Cliff.

  Cliff sighed. “Several attempts to locate the jewels have been made since the results of the tests became known. However, the process was complicated…”

  “Yes, Nat has already mentioned the challenge involving the size of the fields.”

  “Yes, that was certainly a problem; however, it was not the only one. The Crown jewels of England disappeared within a month of the dissolution of the monarchy. There are documents in the National Archives that suggest the pieces were sold by parliament. Therefore, it begs the question. Firstly, what, if anything, did they actually sell, and, two, if the jewels were rediscovered, who owns them?”

  Nat took over. “On completion of the study, an ongoing attempt to locate the jewels began in earnest. Together we spent over twenty weekends a year looking. Drove my wife potty, I might add.”

  “Presumably you had some idea where to look?” she asked.

  “As you can see for yourself, the message is vague. However, a diagram of sorts does appear alongside it. Sadly we were clearly not worthy of its discovery.”

  Gillian looked again at the printouts, examining the area with the magnifying glass. The diagram was an assembly of shapes: a triangle within a square, within a larger square and a much larger rectangle. There was a small cross outside the second square. X marks the spot, she guessed.

  She had no idea what location it referred to.

  “You think it’s already been found?” She replaced the glass on the table.

  “Possibly,” Nat accepted, “However, the battlefields in question are by no means small. Over 25,000 troops lined up at Edgehill alone. We cannot even begin to quantify the exact size of the site. Not to mention any changes to the area since.”

  “Following our original search, news of our findings were passed on to both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary,” Cliff said. “Lastly, it was made known to the Prince of Wales.”

  Gillian felt a knot in her throat. “Go on.”

  “Well, His Highness was delighted, of course,” Nat said. “News that a family heirloom could still exist, its final resting place described in reasonable detail. There was a reason those files you attempted to open were encrypted. It was mutually agreed that the findings would result thus: successful recovery of the lost jewels would see the gallery inherit the monetary value. The state would inherit the finds under the terms of the Treasure Act. The valuables themselves would most likely go on display at the Tower of London alongside their younger cousins.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, nothing,” Nat replied. “Attempts were made; the hoard remained undiscovered. The case of the missing jewels became inconsequential.”

  Gillian was incredulous. “Inconsequential! How on earth can this be considered inconsequential?”

  “Now steady on, Gill. Our job was never about hunting a lost hoard. We had a gallery to run. The message in the painting was written over three hundred years ago. It seemed only inevitable the hoard had been found. Assuming, of course, we weren’t dealing with a fake.”

  “Is Cooper dealing with a fake?” She looked at each man in turn. The head of security was keeping a low profile.

  Receiving no response, Gillian continued. “My only concern is for hard facts. It seems to me the value of the Van Dyck, at least for now, is satisfactory explanation for its removal. Is it really possible, however, that a second work of art has been stolen from our gallery because someone believes it might help relocate a lost treasure?”

  “The reasons are immaterial,” Nat said. “Your job – our job – is solely the successful return of the art.”

  “If we can uncover the motives for the theft, then that gives us a clue as to where the thieves are now headed.” She looked again at the printout. “Of course, even aside from the possibility that the hoard has been found recently, I’m assuming it’s simply failed to dawn on you all that the message probably became redundant centuries ago. After all, surely whoever painted Hesilrige saw the message on Cromwell?”

  “Not necessarily,” Nat returned. “Most likely it was painted over by Cromwell’s family to ensure the message was never rediscovered.”

  “Another problem lies in the message itself,” Cliff began. “Both the x-ray and infrared examinations revealed the painting of Cromwell beneath that of Hesilrige, yes, but the message itself wasn’t necessarily written at the time. The tests confirmed it was written using lemon juice. Invisible ink.”

  “Invisible ink?”

  “Yes, of course. Invisible ink was all the rage back then; it became famous around the time of the Babington Plot with Mary, Queen of Scots, and then with the Jesuits caught up in the Gunpowder Plot. The use of lemon juice, in particular, was remarkably good. On paper it appeared invisible. The remedy was exposing it to heat.”

  “I see,” Gillian nodded, vaguely familiar with the concept. “You really think it’s possible there is more to find?”

  Cliff’s expression remained surprisingly neutral. “Well, if I were to
steal a priceless Van Dyck and had the opportunity to take the Hesilrige, too, I suppose I probably wouldn’t pass the opportunity by.”

  “I suppose I don’t really need to ask you whether you think the message is genuine?” She looked at Nat.

  A wry smile. “The message is similar in character to other letters Cromwell was known to have written, not only to his wife, but to other members of his family. He was also well known to Hesilrige, so his portrait being painted over Cromwell’s is potentially sound. The signature, I think, would be difficult to replicate.”

  “But not impossible?”

  “What is?”

  Gillian nodded, taking a breath. The subject matter was mouth-watering. A genuine possibility that the original Crown jewels still existed.

  Hidden.

  Gillian tucked her hair behind her ears. “If this is true, clues were hidden at sites connected to the three most famous battles of the war. If Cooper stole the painting because of this, he could only have three places to go.”

  “All of which have been visited many times,” Nat added.

  “We can set up surveillance posts at each of the sites,” Edmund said. “That way, if he was to show up, we would have every part covered.”

  Cliff was getting annoyed. “Gillian, might I ask why he’s here?”

  “Because Edmund is my head of security and I trust his opinion. Besides, as a former Yeoman Warder, I should have thought preservation of the Crown jewels would be in his interests.”

  Edmund raised an eyebrow. She was fast.

  “The text goes into very little detail, yet presumably enough for Cromwell and his family to have understood,” Gillian said.

  “Absolutely,” Cliff agreed. “Furthermore, writing a message in lemon juice and exposing it to heat would have been an effective way of passing on a message without attracting unnecessary attention. Unless someone suspected a plot, there would have been little reason for anybody to suspect the painting.”