With these jade figurines, as with most objets d’art and paintings catalogued in the Royal Collection, it was impossible to know their true value, but some jade was worth more than diamonds, and the recent world record price for a piece of jade was a staggering $27.4 million.
Their buyer, who was paying just £100,000 each, was getting an absolute bargain. But the three of them weren’t greedy and at this price they had a very happy, discreet and reliable middleman, with whom they dealt through the dark web. These jade figurines would be despatched to private museums in the Middle East, or Eastern Europe or the Russian bloc — and sometimes even the US — to collectors who would have no scruples about obtaining a piece of another nation’s heritage at a knock-down price, and might well take extra pleasure in that knowledge. And it would likely be many decades before any of them came back on the market, their provenance long vanished in the mists of time.
Just like the three of them, she thought with a wry smile. The gravy train was coming to a halt. About to hit the buffers. Although — she hesitated — maybe train wasn’t such a great analogy, bearing in mind what had happened. Could anything they’d done have backfired on them more than the Royal Train derailment?
But, hey, always look on the bright side, as the Pythons’ song went. And go with the positives. They’d had a good run over this past year, since they’d come up with their plan. And they all knew it was the opportunity of a lifetime for the three of them. They’d all served their country, risked their lives, and for what?
To be dumped on from a great height.
Potentially court-martialled, for what exactly? For doing what they signed up for. To fight the enemy and protect their nation. So, OK, they’d lost their rag out in Afghanistan, after Jon had witnessed the torture and killing of his mate, and she’d seen what atrocities had been done to the corpse. And a very decent senior officer had nearly been stripped of his rank for standing up for them.
She didn’t believe in God. Certainly not a god who had let that happen to her friend, Scottie. But maybe there was another rival god. One who said, Life sucks. So fill your boots whenever you get the opportunity!
It was either fate, or that other, rival god, who had fixed for the three of them to all end up in varying roles within the Royal Household. Jon on the Royal Protection team and herself, Deputy Director of the Royal Collection. Initially, with her art school background, she had decided what she really wanted was excitement — and got far more than she had bargained for in joining the Army. But she had loved her time as a soldier. At first, anyway.
And that officer who had stood up for them — how could fate have arranged, years later, for him to have ended up in such a powerful position within the staff of Buckingham Palace?
The plan had been a simple one. The knowledge that there would never be an opportunity like this again, after the renovations had finished. The Palace in disarray. Priceless valuables all over the place.
It had always been an inventory nightmare for the trustees of the Royal Collection. But never more so during the ten-year renovation programme of the Palace. Paintings and statues and ornaments were constantly being moved around at the request of the builders, making it impossible for the Royal Collection team to know precisely where everything was at any given moment.
Creating a wonderful window of opportunity.
But now time was running out. Each of them — dividing the spoils equally — had already amassed considerable fortunes in untraceable Bitcoin accounts. There was an even bigger fortune in items they had stolen and safely stashed in a storage unit in Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport. A treasure trove worth tens of millions of pounds. To be drip-fed out to buyers over the next few years.
They should cut and run now, Rose knew, while they were still ahead, and not under any suspicion. But there were so many tempting rich pickings to grab while the going was still good — like these jade items. Rose knew there had probably never been an opportunity like this and there never would be again. By the time the discrepancies in the Royal Collection inventory started to be noticed, all three of the trusted Palace employees (well, four, if you included the wife of one of them, who was invaluable) would be long gone. And very rich indeed.
They were already richer than their wildest dreams. And if Jon Smoke hadn’t fucked up, they would all be even richer still.
She worried about him, because he was the liability in this trio. She was angry, too. Angry because even though they’d had an on-off relationship, she was starting to feel he did not deserve an equal share. He was a danger to them. More of a danger than an asset?
54
Saturday 25 November 2023
The drive from his home, near Henfield, across to Ringmer took Roy Grace along the foot of the South Downs, past Lewes where the Police HQ was, and through beautiful countryside, with the hills of the Downs to his right. Views he never tired of.
He had considered swinging by HQ to pick up Branson and bring him along, too, but decided he could do without the chiding his colleague would give him for not heeding his instructions to at least take the morning off.
Cleo understood, although he could see the disappointment on her face and the even bigger disappointment on Noah’s and Molly’s. He felt terrible. The same guilt that always enveloped him like a cloud whenever he had to let his family down. And to make it even worse, right now, at 10.30 a.m., it was promising to be chilly but perfect sunny weather.
Following the satnav he turned off the main road that ran through the village of Ringmer and briefly headed back towards the Downs, before then making a right turn into a pleasant, modern close of identical, three-bedroom detached houses, each with a small front garden, a car port and a garage. A minute or so later he pulled his Alfa Romeo saloon to a halt outside No. 31, which had definitely the most immaculate garden in the entire close. The front lawn looked like it had been trimmed with nail scissors and the two vehicles in front of the garage, a Ford Explorer and a Nissan Micra, gleamed as if they were on a showroom forecourt.
Denton Scroope greeted him at the front door, in a baggy sweater, even baggier jeans and horrible slippers. ‘Good morning, Roy, it is very good to see you again. I trust it is all right to call you Roy, rather than sir, now I’m retired?’
‘Of course, Roy is absolutely fine.’
‘I just like to establish the protocol.’ Scroope spoke as slowly and pedantically as ever, and looking even more like a bespectacled aardvark than Grace remembered. ‘Please, come in, but if you wouldn’t mind removing your shoes — the boss...’ He gave a small shrug.
Grace, casually dressed, complied, stooping to remove his trainers, then went inside, stepping onto a pristine mustard-coloured carpet, and was immediately hit by the clammy, airless warmth and a rank, sour reek. Pets of some kind, he guessed, wrinkling his nose. Hamsters? Snakes? Guinea pigs?
The centrepiece of the tiny hallway was a bust of an arrogantlooking man with long, flowing hair and a pointy beard, set into a niche.
‘Charles I,’ Scroope said, as Grace stared at it.
‘Ah.’
‘Did I ever tell you, Roy, that it was one of my ancestors who signed his death warrant?’
‘Yes, yes you did, Denton.’ Politely, he didn’t add, quite a number of times.
‘Not really a close relative — more a distant cousin, many times removed — I’m not so much a branch of his family tree, more a twig, haha!’