good tug it moved slightly, and he realized it was just jammed. Probably the wood had warped over the years, so that the drawer no longer slid straight on its runners.
With a bit of manoeuvring, he managed to get the drawer straight, and it finally squealed open. Inside was just one item — an old-fashioned, velvet-covered jewellery box with metal clasps. Quite a large box, too. It had filled the drawer completely. When Cooper gently prised the box open, it was like looking down at a miniature dragon’s hoard. A tangled mass of silver chains lay on the velvet, with the occasional glint of a solid band or the glitter of a gemstone. Blue stones, translucent stones like diamonds — and one that was jet black. Was that onyx? He couldn’t quite remember. Then Cooper smiled. He should have been thinking gold and silver-coloured. Because surely these items were all imitation. They would have been worth a fortune otherwise.
Something at the bottom of the heap caught Cooper’s eye. A glint of gold, but an unusual shape. He pushed the chains aside and drew it out. He found himself holding a small badge. A crown and a wreath around a curious little figure he couldn’t quite make out. The left hand seemed to be raised to the eyes, and the right hand was holding a flaming torch. And the figure was wearing — what? A breast plate? Armour? The only help was the motto etched on a scroll at the bottom of the badge. It said: Forewarned is forearmed.
‘What the heck does that mean?’
At that moment, Fry called him to join her in the other bedroom. She had opened a case containing a laptop computer and some papers.
‘Michael Clay’s?’ asked Cooper.
‘Yes, it seems to be. He must have been here at some time since he left home on Tuesday. Unfortunately, the laptop is password protected, so we’ll have to hand it over to the experts if we want to get anything off it. Did you notice that both bedrooms have been occupied?’
‘Yes. That’s interesting.’
‘And what do you make of this?’
Fry shook out the contents of a large buff envelope on to the bed. Cooper saw an old colour photograph of about a dozen men and one woman, all dressed in identical outfits, a sort of blue tunic and trousers, with berets worn at various rakish angles. They looked cheerful, a group of mates enjoying their work. He guessed their ages must have ranged from about seventy down to seventeen or so. A motley bunch, definitely.
But when was it taken? Most snaps had been in black and white until the early sixties, if the Cooper family album was a typical example. The earliest colour photo he could remember was of his parents on holiday in Wales with some friends, back before they were married — 1962, or around that time. In this photo, the subjects were standing in front of a small brick tower with a set of steps leading up the outside wall. There appeared to be no roof to the tower — he could see the sky through a doorway at the top of the steps. There also seemed to be an old- fashioned striped canvas deckchair leaning against the wall up there.
Automatically, Cooper turned the print over. Many people did what his mother had always done, and recorded all kinds of information on the back of a photograph. Date, place, the names of everyone shown in the picture. You never knew your luck.
But this one was infuriatingly sparse in its caption. It said simply 4 Romeo.
He pointed out the inscription to Fry.
‘Which one is Romeo, then?’ she said.
‘Number four? The fourth one from the left?’
They both looked closely at the line-up faces. The fourth man from the left was a fat character with a jowly chin. An unlikely Romeo. Cooper counted four from the right instead, and came up with a weedy-looking youth peering at the camera through round, wire-rimmed glasses. TinTin maybe, but not Romeo.
Fry placed a finger on another face. ‘I think this one could be Michael Clay, though,’ she said. ‘A lot younger, of course. But there’s something about the shape of the face that’s very distinctive.’
‘What else is in the envelope, Diane?’
‘Just these — ’
Fry held out a tie with a small logo on it, and a badge identical to the one Cooper had seen in the drawer in the other bedroom.
‘“Forewarned is forearmed” — but what does it mean?’
Before Fry could reply, the front door of the house opened cautiously. They heard a nervous voice downstairs.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’
Her name was Pauline Outram, and she seemed to be permanently on the verge of bursting into laughter. What Fry had at first taken for a nervous cough was actually a sort of constant half-snigger, as if she didn’t want to be considered lacking in a sense of humour if someone made a joke that she didn’t understand. Fry wanted to tell her to stop it, that she wasn’t about to make any jokes.
‘We’re here because we’re looking for Michael Clay,’ said Fry.
‘That’s funny, because so am I.’
‘You don’t know where he is?’
‘He should be here. But I guess…’
‘You know who we are,’ said Fry, after identification had been shown. ‘Now explain to us who exactly you are.’
Fry was genuinely curious to know. She didn’t think Pauline Outram looked much like a secret mistress. Not even the right age, really. A fifty-one-year-old man going through a mid-life crisis was likely to go for someone about half his age. Or so she’d heard. But Pauline must be in her late thirties, and there was nothing sexy or glamorous about her. Nothing about Pauline Outram suggested she’d come here to meet a lover.
But the question didn’t seem easy for Pauline to answer. She looked from one detective to the other, struggling for words.
‘We won’t be shocked,’ said Fry. ‘You can tell us the truth. We only want to locate Mr Clay. It doesn’t matter what your relationship was, as long as it helps us to find him.’
And then it dawned on Pauline what Fry was suggesting.
‘Oh no, you’ve got it wrong,’ she said, shaking her head, that nervous half-laugh setting Fry’s nerves on edge.
‘Are you not having an affair with Michael Clay?’
‘No, no. You don’t understand. I’m not his lover. That’s not why he leased this house for me.’
‘Who are you, then?’
Pauline Outram looked her in the eye, her face calm and serious for the first time. And it was only then that Fry saw the faint family resemblance to Michael Clay.
‘I’m Michael’s niece. His brother Stuart’s daughter.’
28
Back at the office half an hour later, Cooper went to his PC and Googled the motto on the badge he’d found in Eden View. Forewarned is forearmed. It was a common enough phrase, an old adage that he must have heard his parents use time and again.
Google presented several sources for definitions. ‘ Praemonitus, praemunitus. Knowledge of imminent danger can prepare us to overcome it.’ There was even a link to George W. Bush using the phrase in a speech about Iran. Corporate intelligence, cancer research, travel tips on avoiding pickpockets… Not much use.
Cooper clicked through three or four pages of links without success, and was about to give up looking when he saw a different reference. It was a book title, advertised by a seller on ABE, the second-hand book dealers’ site. He clicked on the link and found himself reading a description of the book being offered. A history of the Royal Observer Corps, evidently some branch of the British armed forces. Could that be right?
A fresh search and a few more clicks found a picture of the ROC logo. The figure on the badge was apparently based on an Elizabethan beacon lighter, who used to watch the coast and warn of approaching Spanish ships. And, yes, that was the Corps motto: Forewarned is forearmed.
