up and said, 'How do, Wieldy. What fettle?'
'Grand, Des. Weren't that Belchamber I saw just come in? What's he doing?'
'He's acting for Yasher Asif, you know him? Runs that caff called Turk's by the station. They brought him in for questioning about some illegals-smuggling racket.'
'Thanks, Des. Let me through, eh?'
The sergeant released the security lock and Wield went through the door and hurried up the stairs to CID. He glimpsed Pascoe through the open door of his office and went in.
The DCI was studying a letter whose handwriting Wield identified at a glance. Franny Roote's. Shit, he thought, is the silly sod still letting himself be distracted?
Before he could speak Pascoe looked up and said, 'Wieldy, what do you know about the Elsecar Hoard?'
It was like having his mind read.
'A lot more now than I did an hour ago,' said Wield. 'Why do you ask?'
'No reason… just an idea… oh shit, what am I tiptoeing around for? It's something Roote says in this letter.'
'Giving you tips now, is he? I thought it were all hidden confessions.'
'I think I may have got another of those too,' said Pascoe grimly. 'But that's between me and him. Anyway, he mentioned the Hoard apropos a conversation he had with what sounds very like a high-class fence. And I got to thinking. It's in Sheffield at the moment and it's coming here soon
The twenty-sixth, week tomorrow,' said Wield.
'You're well informed.'
'Some of us get places by honest police work that other idle sods reach by imaginative leaps,' said Wield. 'If you're talking about this job Mate Polchard's planning, that is.'
Now it was Pascoe's turn to feel mind-read.
'What else? Tell me about this honest police work. You interest me strangely.'
Quickly Wield filled him in on his conversation with Lubanski.
'It was this bit about the crown that got me thinking. That and wondering why the hell Belchamber should have got so personally involved in this job. Then I remembered seeing a poster at the Centre about the Hoard being on exhibition in January. And I recalled there was some article fulminating over the sale that Belchamber had written in the Gazette. Didn't read it myself, but Edwin gets hot and bothered about such things and he kept quoting bits at me over the dinner table till I told him that the moral indignation of a dipstick like the Belch weren't good for my digestion. Anyway, I went down to the reference library to look it up in the back numbers. Took a closer look at them posters too. They've got Belchamber giving a lecture on the Hoard on the exhibition opening day. Odd that.'
'Why? He's really involved. I saw him on the telly the other week. He might be a shitbag, but he knows his Medes from his Persians.'
'It's odd because of the way he's blown hot and cold. I'll show you what I mean. Yon lass of Bowler's was very helpful. Hadn't seen her-since that scare at New Year.'
'How'd she look?'
'Bit pale maybe, but full of the joys of spring otherwise.'
In fact, Rye had greeted him rather frostily till it was established that his motive in appearing there had nothing to do with her. Then she had thawed and to his enquiry after her health, she'd replied, 'Never better. Just some virus that's going around, but I'm over it now. How about you, Mr Wield?'
'I'm fine. At least nothing that a bit of spring sunshine won't cure. Roll on, eh?'
'Yes,' she said. 'I can't wait.' Which for some reason she seemed to think of as funny and her laughter was so infectious, he found himself joining in.
‘This article…' prompted Pascoe.
'Articles. There were two of them. It was Rye put me on to the other which appeared way back when Belch were on better terms with the Elsecars. I've got copies. This is the earlier one.'
He handed it over. Pascoe scanned it quickly then read it again at a more leisurely pace.
This described a visit Belchamber and other officers of the Mid-Yorkshire Archaeological Society had been permitted to make to view the Hoard. It was fulsome with expressions of gratitude to the Elsecars for their kind condescension in allowing the visit. The style when he described the content of the Hoard was scholarly and objective, but later it became personal and familiar as he started theorizing, or perhaps romancing was a better word, about the provenance of various items and the background of their owner and the circumstances of their loss.
Readers of some previous pieces of mine on Roman Yorkshire may recall that on one occasion I traced my own ancestry back, reasonably legitimately, to the fifteenth century and then, rather more fancifully, to Marcus Bellisarius, an official of the Provincial Governor's commissariat, briefly mentioned by Tacitus. Now when I was permitted to hold the serpent coronet (or Cartimandua 's Crown as the Victorians mistakenly dubbed it) I must confess to feeling a thrill at my contact with the smooth twists and folds of gold that seemed more than just the natural pleasure of an amateur of ancient history. The thought popped into my mind: suppose the collector of these wonderful things was in fact my putative ancestor Marcus Bellisarius?
Suppose the serpent coronet came to him as part of the dot of the Brigantian princess that he married (such alliances were not uncommon in the older Romano-British families), and suppose that, though the Hoard was lost beyond recall in flight from God knows what peril, he or his children survived and flourished and founded the family of which this undeserving scion, sixteen centuries later, was permitted to hold this symbol of that union?
Then someone took the coronet from me and I was back in the world of reality.
'Two snakes intertwined. Good symbol for the Belchamber family’ said Pascoe.
'You see how completely obsessed he seems to be with the Hoard and in particular the coronet?' said Wield. 'So it's no surprise to find him really pissed off when he hears it's going to America. Here's the second article, the one that got Edwin going.'
Pascoe scanned it quickly. In measured prose whose orotundity did not disguise real feeling, it expressed huge indignation that a weak and time-serving government should allow such treasures as these to leave the country. It concluded:
My professional work brings me in contact with all sorts and conditions of men who have committed all sorts and conditions of crime, but rarely have I confronted an action as criminal as this. As a lawyer I must take care how I describe the family who propose it and the politicians who permit it, but I will say that, though of course I subscribe to that basic tenet of our legal system that every accused is entitled to a defence, I think that I personally would draw the line at defending such as these.
That's really telling them’ said Pascoe. 'It certainly is. Which makes it odd that he's made it up with the Elsecars since then. Giving lectures and helping them arrange this tour’
'The aim of which is to help raise enough money to keep it here’ said Pascoe. 'Which is what he wants’
'Oh aye. That's what he wants right enough’ said Wield. 'But anyone who can add up knows there's not a cat in hell's chance of making enough from admission fees to get anywhere near the Yanks' price’
Pascoe hid a smile, recognizing that what he was now alleging everyone knew the sergeant had probably not even thought of until a couple of hours ago.
He said, 'So what you're saying is, the reason Belchamber threw his weight behind this tour is because he wants the Hoard out in the open where he can get his hands on it? That's a big leap, Wieldy. This is Belchamber we're talking about, the guy who doesn't fart without studying precedent’
'Guy gets an obsession, he'll do anything’ said Wield a little pointedly. 'And he's an arrogant bastard, that's clear. Put the feeling you get in both those pieces with his change of heart, then add what Lee overheard
'You could be right, Wieldy. If so… Look, has Lubanski told you everything, do you think? Or is he holding something back to get more Brownie points from you later?'
'I think he's told me everything’ said Wield, his worries reawoken by mention of Lee's name. 'You know that Belchamber's here?'
'Yeah. I met him outside, brought him in. We had a nice chat, but I don't think he's forgiven me for what I said to him after young Linford's committal. Seems he's representing some guy Uniformed just brought in on a smuggling illegals charge.'
