‘Now you’re wondering if it might have been nicked?’
‘Yes. I’m thinking we need to make discreet enquiries as to its whereabouts. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation — as Her Majesty... implied.’ He paused for a moment. ‘But what I wanted to discuss with you, privately away from the team, is an idea I’ve had for a line of enquiry that might help in avoiding alerting too many people in the Royal Household to our suspicions. If it succeeds, it might also help recover at least some of the stolen items.’
Branson looked at him. ‘I’m all ears.’
‘OK, if Denton Scroope has accurately deciphered Greaves’ diary — and I believe he has so far — then we have a group — ring — of trusted people in the employ of the Royal Household who are stealing from their employers, and selling the valuable items through contacts made in the dark web. Would you agree?’
‘If Scroope’s deciphering is correct, then yes, boss.’
‘He still has to decipher one more page that consists of five seemingly cryptic entries that might be connected to the group. He thinks they may give us either names, locations or a list of objects. And meantime we need to be looking hard at the dark web. My thinking is we need someone to carry out a deep dive into the dark web, firstly to see what dealers or dealings they can find for the kind of works being stolen from the Palace. Also, and I think this will prove harder, to see if they can find any evidence trail of transactions involving stolen Royal Collection works.’
Branson nodded. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘Are you going tell Magellan-Lacey what we’ve learned from the diary — and our next plan of action?’
‘I’ve asked him to let me have a list of everyone who could be considered high up in Royal Service and anyone — in any of the five Royal Household departments — who might have reason to be disgruntled. I’ve not yet heard back. I’ve a meeting scheduled with him tomorrow so he can update both The King and The Queen, but I’ve not decided yet what to tell him. I’m not sure I want to take the risk, however helpful he is, of us losing the advantage we currently have from what we’ve got from the diary. At the moment we have control and I want to keep it that way.’
‘That’s good thinking.’
‘But I have a further idea. What if we could have someone create a false identity, setting themselves up as a dealer who is acting for a wealthy overseas collector — an oligarch or some such — looking for highly unique items around the world that have some kind of historical provenance.’
‘Entrapment — is that what you are saying?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’
‘We can’t do that. The police setting up a sting? That wouldn’t play well in a court of law. It rarely does.’
‘It doesn’t — which is why we need a person who’s not connected to us in any way, and ideally someone who’s been involved in criminal activity on the dark web and would know their way around. The dark web isn’t just one layer below the normal web everyone uses for legitimate purposes — it’s multiple layers, which is why one of the networks to access it is called The Onion Router, because it’s like peeling back the layers of an onion. We can be pretty sure these thieves are smart enough to have their sales activity buried very deep down in the dark web — unlike that idiot footman Sir Tommy told us about who was nicking stuff and flogging it on eBay.’
‘Including one of his own medals.’
‘I think he was more pissed off about that than anything,’ Grace said.
‘Yeah.’ Glenn Branson frowned. ‘Do you have someone in mind? Someone not connected to us in any way.’
Grace looked deadly serious. ‘I do. Someone we nicked last year. I did a pretty good job behind the scenes, talking to the CPS and the judge, in getting her the minimum sentence possible. She knows her way around the dark web like nobody does. And she owes me a big favour — although she might not see it that way.’
‘Are you talking about a certain Shannon Kendall?’
A year ago, Shannon Kendall, a computer expert with a background in cybersecurity and an authority on the dark web, had been the lover of a killer for hire, for whom she ran a business selling handguns on the internet. Grace and Branson had secured her arrest and conviction for the firearms offences.
‘I am indeed talking about a certain Shannon Kendall. She’s currently enjoying His Majesty’s hospitality in HMP Downview — just an hour’s drive from here — so surely she’d be only too happy to reciprocate some of that hospitality in helping avoid any more theft of The King’s valuables?’
Branson cocked his head. ‘I’m thinking, good luck with that one.’
‘Got a better idea?’
‘Nope, not right at this moment.’
59
Monday 27 November 2023
One of Arthur Lambourne’s colleagues joked that an English summer consisted of three fine days followed by a thunderstorm. Not far off the mark, the elderly groundsman thought. You could apply the same to the Indian summers that used to reach into October but now seemed to extend as far as November and December. Three days and then, boom!
He’d seen the changes in the weather pattern all right, during his fifty-five years of maintaining the Buckingham Palace lawns — his particular responsibility, and passion. Changes in pretty much everything. Who’d have thought when he entered royal service all those decades back, proud as Punch, that one day the head of the twelve-strong gardening team would be female — and a darned knowledgeable woman at that.
A few years back when he’d first told his daughter, Nel, about the appointment of his new boss, she had responded, only partly in jest, Girl Power! Then again, of course, up until a year ago, the boss of not just the entire Palace but the entire nation had been a female too.
He had been deeply saddened by the death of Queen Elizabeth, and had fond memories of the many times they had conversed when she was out walking across the lawn, her corgis running free. But he was enjoying very much just how keen a gardener King Charles was — his wife also. Lots of new ideas, new plans. You had to move with the times, Arthur knew, even though it often felt in the sanctuary here, behind the walls that kept the outside world at bay, that in many ways time stood still. He just wished the weather would stay still sometimes, too.
The back end of last week had been glorious, enabling him to get out on the ancient Atco gang mower — which, through loving care, he’d kept in service for over a quarter of a century — and create those perfect stripes that he knew The King liked so much. Almost as much as he loved the acers, which were in abundance along the borders of the huge area of lawn. Then fierce rain had come in late on Saturday. And the even more torrential downpour that accompanied the thunderstorm came next, followed by yet another glorious day yesterday. All of which meant the grass had grown to the point where it needed cutting again today.
The one positive about the rain was that it had cleared away all the droppings from the pesky — albeit beautiful — Canada geese that descended annually on the Palace lake, terrorizing the ducks, moorhens, coots and swans, and crapping all over the lawns like they were a public toilet for wildlife.
If he’d had his way, he’d have sorted them out with a twelve-bore. But, and he could understand the reasons, the sound of gunshots ringing out within the Palace grounds was probably not a great idea.
Mind you, some of the late Queen Elizabeth’s corgis were a problem too. Not the female ones — although they also did their business on the grass — but Vulcan, the little bugger, had had particularly acid wee. His urine was like a vial of sulphuric acid being poured onto his precious lawn. Small, horrible and ugly brown patches all over the place.