‘No, we finished that ages ago,’ said Artemisia. ‘We’re now reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.’ William felt guilty about how many times he’d failed to get home before the children fell asleep. His father had warned him often enough how quickly these years would slip by.
‘I may be able to pull off a little coup,’ said Beth as Sarah took the children up for their bath, ‘which wouldn’t do my chances of getting the job any harm.’
‘You’re planning to bribe the selection committee.’
‘I don’t have enough money to do that,’ said Beth. ‘However, I’ve spotted a painting by Jan Steen that’s coming up for sale at an auction in Pittsburgh, which I might be able to pick up for a reasonable price, although it’s quite possible we’ll be outbid, as it’s on the cover of the catalogue.’
‘How would that help you land the job?’
‘It won’t. But in the same catalogue I came across a pencil drawing by an unknown artist that I’m convinced is a preliminary sketch for the lamp in The Night Watch.’
‘What’s the estimate?’
‘Two hundred dollars. It may be a copy by one of Rembrandt’s contemporaries but, at that price, it’s a risk worth taking.’
‘And if it’s actually by Rembrandt?’
‘It could be worth as much as forty thousand pounds.’
‘So selling it would make a welcome contribution to the museum’s impoverished coffers.’
‘Not a chance. The board would never agree to sell a Rembrandt drawing. They’d put it on permanent display, even though it would cover the cost of the director’s salary for a year.’
‘I’m sure you’ll find a subtle way of letting them know that.’
‘Only if I turn out to be right.’
‘Having been the only one who spotted it,’ said William, before pointing upstairs. ‘But now for higher things. Time for me to go and join the Mad Hatter and find out why he’s having tea with the Queen of Hearts.’
‘What would you like for supper?’ Beth asked as he got up from the table.
‘Any chance of a pizza?’ he said, staring down at the empty plate.
‘You got lucky, caveman. I’ve accepted for some time that there are four children in this family, so I ordered an extra one. When you come back down, you can tell me all about your day.’
‘Just another day at the office,’ said William. ‘Though I did have an interesting chat to the Queen...’
William turned up late for work at Buckingham Gate the following morning, and was back home in time to read the next chapter before the children fell asleep. By the end of the month, they’d finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and had reached Chapter 5 of Through the Looking Glass, only because his more relaxed attitude to timekeeping fitted in with the team’s long-term plan to convince Milner they were only too happy to climb on board his gravy train as first-class passengers.
For the past six weeks, they had been keeping to a strict timetable. They would turn up late every morning, enjoy long lunch breaks, which they then claimed on expenses, before leaving early, all part of a well-orchestrated performance, conducted by William.
When Milner began calling him Bill, he knew Operation Overcharge was falling neatly into place. The Superintendent would have done well to remember that Constable William Warwick hadn’t been nicknamed ‘Choirboy’ by chance when he first joined the force.
The eight o’clock team meetings at the Yard became more regular as they approached the window of opportunity — that ten days when Prince Charles and Diana would be carrying out an overseas tour. Superintendent Milner, DI Reynolds and Sergeant Jennings, who had recently been promoted as a personal protection officer ahead of Constable Jenny Smart, would be with them on the far side of the Atlantic, while DI Ross Hogan would be able to keep a close eye on all of them.
‘How did you manage to pull that off?’ Faulkner asked Tulip as the two men strolled around the exercise yard together.
‘I found a Judas who didn’t even want thirty pieces of silver to betray him,’ replied Tulip. ‘His name is Tareq Omar.’
‘And why is he willing to take such a risk?’
‘Khalifah was responsible for his brother’s death during the recent coup in Algeria, so for him, revenge will be a sufficient reward in itself.’
‘How do we bring the two of them together?’
‘I’ve arranged for Omar to be transferred to cleaning duties on Khalifah’s wing, so their paths will cross regularly, when he’ll pose as a devoted follower of the cause. My only fear is he might kill him.’
‘We want to keep him alive while there’s the slightest chance Khalifah could be my passport out of here.’
‘I thought that was all under control.’
‘So did I,’ said Miles, ‘until BW turned up for our weekly meeting and told me he’d been to see Sir Julian Warwick to confirm our agreement.’
‘What makes you think he didn’t?’ asked Tulip.
‘Lamont says they haven’t seen each other since they met in his chambers soon after he returned from Spain.’
‘Which one of them do you believe?’
‘Lamont, because if he’d been working solely for BW, he would have confirmed his story. So I may need to cash in one of my insurance policies if I’m to have any hope of getting out of this place.’ Tulip knew when not to interrupt the boss. ‘One thing’s for certain,’ continued Miles, ‘I can’t risk meeting Omar myself, so how will he get any worthwhile information he picks up to you, without attracting yard gossip?’
‘My cell’s on the same landing as his, so he can drop in from time to time without anyone becoming suspicious. But it could still be some time before Khalifah trusts him enough to confide in him.’
‘I haven’t got a lot of time left,’ said Miles, not elaborating. ‘If Omar does come up with anything worthwhile, let me know immediately, as I’ve already made an appointment to see Commander Hawksby.’
Tulip couldn’t believe what he’d just heard.
William arrived at Buckingham Gate just before eight o’clock the following morning, to find Rebecca waiting for him on the doorstep. Once the night watch officer had gone home, he locked the front door, aware they couldn’t afford to be disturbed, while Milner and the away team were abroad, watching over their principals.
Paul had left home just before seven a.m., and made only one stop on his way to Windsor, to pick up Jackie. She was entitled to six months’ sick leave, but had soon realized that Rebecca dropping in from time to time to bring her up to date wasn’t that exciting, besides which, she’d already become bored with afternoon television.
The vital piece of the jigsaw had fallen neatly into place when Constable Jenny Smart had decided to resign from the unit and applied to be transferred to another section, having been passed over for promotion once too often.
Paul and Jackie hadn’t needed to break into the administration block, because Jenny had left the door wide open.
They spent night and day during the week poring through file after file that provided them with more than enough of the evidence they needed to convince the Hawk about the lifestyle Milner and his cohorts had been enjoying for the past ten years at the taxpayers’ expense.
As they had only got half-way through the damning evidence by Friday night, they didn’t go home, but, despite sleeping on camp beds during the weekend, they still had two more filing cabinets to go through by the time Milner accompanied the Prince and Princess back on the plane to Heathrow.
Back at Buckingham Gate, William used a pass key to enter Milner’s office, while Rebecca found that DI Reynolds’s door hadn’t been locked. He obviously thought no one would dare to enter his sanctuary while he was away. Sergeant Jennings’s office was locked; that would have to wait, but then he’d only recently been promoted, so his sins wouldn’t be quite as damning.