‘Why don’t you tell me?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with me, my dear, I swear it on my life. The man is just stirring trouble, that’s all.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m sure. Perhaps a word with your father? Have him ask his friend the Chief Constable why he’s allowing his detectives to pester his daughter.’

  ‘He knows about us and Warne Farm?’ asked Andrei, when he’d ended the call. ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You think the girl made us?’

  ‘No. I’d have heard from my source.’

  ‘Sure. If it was in their interest.’

  De Bruin didn’t reply, but it was something to consider. His source had betrayed his badge without a qualm. He’d betray de Bruin just as swiftly. And while prison in itself didn’t exactly frighten him, he found himself offended by the prospect of being deprived of everything he’d worked so hard to achieve. Several years ago, he’d therefore spent a small fortune on a second identity as an expatriate Canadian businessman called Patrick Browne, in whose name he’d bought a charming villa overlooking Saint Lucia’s Donnery Bay, and had lodged sufficient funds in Cypriot, Panamanian and British Virgin Islands accounts to live handsomely for life. But that was a last resort. Lincolnshire was home. His empire was here. His power and status. His wife and beloved daughter.

  He checked the dashboard monitor again. Anna Warne crossed the River Trent on the Great North Road then headed past Newark Castle into the town centre, where her signal abruptly vanished. The explanation for this became clear when they reached the spot themselves, for it proved to be the entrance ramp to a supermarket’s underground car park, up which Anna herself now came striding even as they drove by, though fortunately she was too busy pulling up her hood against the drizzle to spot them. And she had no bag upon her shoulder, he noted, perhaps because his biker friends had broken its buckle in last night’s failed snatch.

  He watched over his shoulder as she headed off towards the castle. They found a place to turn then headed down the ramp into the car park. Two workmen were digging up a section of floor with a jackhammer, making a terrible din and filling the air with dust. They drove a circuit of the place before spotting Anna’s van in a far corner, perhaps chosen out of guilt for using the supermarket’s car park without intending to shop there.

  De Bruin made to get out but Andrei grabbed his wrist. ‘No,’ he said, pointing up at a CCTV camera.

  ‘I need that bag,’ de Bruin told him irritably.

  ‘Yes. But not like this.’

  They headed back out, found a place to park on a side street further on. They pulled on waterproofs, baseball caps, scarves and gloves then made their way back on foot. The jackhammer was still thundering away, providing them with cover. De Bruin stood guard while Andrei slipped down the gap between van and wall. Locks were one of his skills. This one took him no time at all. Anna’s bag was on the passenger seat. He passed it back to de Bruin. Its broken buckle was crudely mended with black tape, but all it contained was a slimline laptop. Either she’d taken her uncle’s wallet with her, or it was somewhere else inside the van.

  They climbed in through its passenger door, clambering between the seats to get into the back, packed not just with farm equipment, but with an overnight case and a box of books too. Then they set about their search without a word. No word was needed, after all, for Andrei was the one person in the world who knew what they were after.

  And, more to the point, why.

  FIFTY-SIX

  Newark Castle was less a castle these days than a monumental wall that ran along the ridge between the River Trent and the small but pretty public gardens on its other side, whose lush lawns, flowerbeds and bandstand were screened off from the main road by a thick line of trees. Anna had only visited it once before, when she and Uncle Dun had brought a picnic here on a bright summer’s day before harvest had kicked off in earnest. But all she could remember was drinking too much white wine and falling asleep on a grassy bank.

  The weather today could hardly have been more different, what with the cold and the drizzle, yet the place was still buzzing. A coachload or two of schoolchildren in weatherproofs were shrieking in competitive delight as they hunted for clues in some kind of Civil War treasure hunt. Anna weaved between them in search of Oliver and his crew. The path down to the river had been roped off for filming. That had to be it. She turned off her mobile in case they were already at it, then slipped beneath the rope and peeked around the wall.

  It was indeed them. Even better, they were clearly on a break. Two young men she took to be Oliver’s cameraman and sound engineer were standing beneath a golf umbrella by the river wall, discussing how best to bring into shot a colourful canal boat moored against the far bank, while Oliver was taking shelter beneath a blue canvas canopy while chatting away with a stout, grey-haired woman in a green macintosh, a flat tweed cap and a long rainbow scarf.

  He saw Anna and beckoned her over. ‘Bloody rain,’ he said cheerfully, when she joined them. ‘The forecast keeps telling it to stop. But it will not listen.’ He introduced her to his companion, Newark Castle’s custodian and historian Philippa Underhill. ‘We were just talking Brother Simon,’ he said, with a twinkle in his eye. ‘You’ll never guess who they say he was round here.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘They say he was Friar Tuck,’ said Oliver. ‘And that the reason he poisoned King John was in revenge for his having murdered Maid Marian.’

  ‘It’s only a piece of colour for our tour parties,’ said Philippa, a touch embarrassed. ‘They do so love their Robin Hood. But it’s nonsense, I’m afraid. Mendicant orders like the friars didn’t even exist yet in King John’s time. And Maid Marian was a much later addition to the canon. So even if there were any truth to the larger Robin Hood legend, which frankly I doubt—’

  ‘Don’t say such things!’ protested Oliver. ‘Certainly not on camera.’ He turned to Anna for support. ‘Weren’t you telling me there really was an outlaw Robin Hood?’

  ‘I said there may have been,’ said Anna. ‘It still wouldn’t make the stories true. Many are classic folklore, dating from well before his time. And the genuine exploits among them were mostly carried out by people like Roger Godberd and Willikin of the—’ She broke off as half a dozen or so schoolchildren came racing around the side of the castle, screeching in excitement as they searched for planted clues, closely followed by a mortified young teacher apologising profusely as she brought them to heel and then shepherded them away.

  ‘You were saying?’ prompted Oliver.

  Anna shook her head, feeling a little dazed. The world had just shifted on her, like an optical illusion that switched suddenly from one image to another, and then you couldn’t understand how you hadn’t seen it before. ‘We’ve been thinking about it all wrong,’ she muttered, to herself as much as Oliver.

  ‘Thinking about what all wrong?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Anna, for it was too huge just to blurt out. Too huge and too dismaying. ‘I need to check something in the van, that’s all. Give me ten minutes. I’ll be straight back.’ She touched his elbow in apology then set off before he could ask the question she could see already on his lips, hurrying back up the path to the road then along the pavement to the supermarket, her distraction such that she bumped first into a woman pushing a blue pram, then an elderly couple hunched beneath an old black umbrella being tugged this way and that by gusts of wind.

  She told herself to focus, but it was hard. Her mind was in turmoil. King John’s failing war against the French, the loss of his baggage train, Brother Simon and his arsenic, Robin Hood and his Merry men, the regency of William Marshal and the silver pennies beneath her uncle’s body – all those distinct pieces now fitting together to form a completely different picture – and fitting so sweetly, too, that it surely had to be the truth. Only one question remained. The question of where. Yet Anna suspected she knew that too, or at least where the answer lay: in those photos on her uncle’s drone, and in the papers she’d taken from his desk, boxed up in the back of the van.

  The workmen were still at it when she arrived back in the car park, their jackhammer sending shivers through her feet and filling the air with galaxies of dust that got into her eyes and mouth, so that she put up her hand to clear her throat into it. She threw an irritable glance over her shoulder as she unlocked the van’s rear doors and pulled them open, only to freeze at what she saw. For two men were on their knees inside, their faces hidden by their caps and scarves, yet instantly recognisable all the same.

  She turned to run but the weightlifter was too fast. He grabbed her wrist then pulled her violently towards him. She banged her knee painfully against the back bumper as he dragged her inside. Then he threw her to the van floor and clamped a hand over her mouth before anyone could hear her scream.

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  Priya Kapur had lived a quiet life, never once knowingly breaking the law, or even coming close. She was the last kind of person to need a solicitor, let alone a criminal one. But she needed one this morning. For the first time since joining the King John Hotel, therefore, and despite the indignant protests of Penny Scott, she took one of the many days holiday she had owing, then packed her best kurta and a pashmina into a small backpack before cycling the three miles into Long Sutton on a boneshaker borrowed from the hotel stock.

  She padlocked the bike to a stand in the pub car park then caught the Number 50 bus into Wisbech, where she changed into her kurta and pashmina in the shopping arcade toilets before making her way to the offices of the town’s largest solicitor, whose name and address she’d found online earlier that morning.

  It took ten minutes of pacing up and down outside before duty finally overpowered shame. She went inside. An elderly man was shouting at the receptionist about a decision the local council had made against him, while the poor young woman tried her best to explain that it had nothing to do either with her or even with the firm. Priya waited until he’d stormed off, then went up to the desk where she expressed solidarity with a sympathetic smile. Then, in a soft voice, fearful of being overheard, she gave a hint of her situation.

  The solicitor’s office had been buzzing all morning with the latest news out of Warne Farm. The moment the receptionist realised that it was this that had brought Priya there, she called the firm’s senior criminal law partner to let him know. He appeared a minute or so later, a tall, thin, querulous-looking man called Basil Young who led Priya back to his office then invited her to tell him all. But she only managed to blush and stammer and twist her hands.

  A minute passed. He rolled his eyes and checked his watch. She’d have fled right then had it not been for the large framed photograph on his desk of his wife and four children hugging a golden Labrador, which made her think there must be kindness in there somewhere. Yet still the words wouldn’t come. She sat in anguish for another half minute or so before finally giving up, getting back to her feet and apologising for wasting his time.

  Basil Young had been practising criminal law for nearly forty years. In that time, he’d come across every imaginable kind of human frailty. His eyes narrowed shrewdly. His expression softened. ‘Don’t leave,’ he said gently. ‘Not just yet. There’s someone I’d very much like you to meet.’

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  The fight was lost before Anna even realised she was in it, Andrei grabbing her by her hair to slam her head against the van’s metal floor, stunning her for long enough for de Bruin to close the van’s rear doors and then take over, pinning her shoulders to the floor with his knees and gagging her with his hand. Andrei meanwhile wrested the van’s keys from her weakened grip then clambered over the seats into the front. He reversed out of their bay and headed for the exit, turning right onto the main road and accelerating away. ‘Where now?’ he asked, over his shoulder.

  ‘Just drive,’ said de Bruin. His scarf had fallen away during the struggle, revealing his face flushed with a strange excitement. He pressed his hand unnecessarily hard down upon her mouth, his teeth clamped together from the effort, as much to hurt her as to keep her quiet. ‘Where is it?’ he demanded.

  Anna shook her head, bewildered. He ran his free hand all over her in a crude mockery of a pat-down, squeezing her breasts and feeling between her legs before trying the various pockets on her winter jacket. He ignored her house keys but took out her phone, powering it down before tossing it to Andrei when he stopped at a set of lights, for him to throw out the window. Then he continued his search of her pockets until finally he found her uncle’s wallet with its contents still clipped together in their evidence bags. His eyes lit up. He separated one of these out from the rest then lifted it to his mouth to tear it free with his teeth. The plastic ripped, however, and the gold wedding ring inside fell to the floor and rolled away.

  The look on his face told Anna the truth. Not her uncle’s after all, but de Bruin’s own. Presumably, to justify all this craziness, with his and his wife’s initials inscribed around the inside, along with the date of their wedding and perhaps even traces of blood and DNA from the bodies between the fields. Uncle Dun must have found it and kept it as a hold. No wonder de Bruin had stalked her outside the pound last night. No wonder his biker friends had come for her bag.

  All this passed through Anna’s head in a blink even as de Bruin lunged for it. His eagerness was his undoing. His knee slipped from her shoulder, tipping him off balance and releasing Anna’s arm for a moment, enabling her to grab the ring herself before he could recover. Yet what to do with it? There was nowhere to hide it or throw it that he wouldn’t retrieve it instantly. So she popped it in her mouth instead, and swallowed.

  De Bruin’s snarl turned terrifying, his skin flushing bright red and his lips drawn all the way back over his teeth. He meant to kill her, she could read it on his face. Perhaps he might have done so, too, had he not needed his ring back first – for how would he explain it being found in her stomach? He pinched her nostrils together, punched her in the stomach to make her gasp for air, then tried to thrust two of his gloved forefingers down her throat to make her vomit. She bit down hard instead. He yelped and snatched back his hand, then clutched it around her throat and began to squeeze, only to be struck suddenly by an idea so delightful that his fury left him in an instant, leaving him looking almost gleeful instead. ‘Call Victor,’ he shouted out to Andrei.

  ‘And tell him what?’ grunted Andrei.

  ‘To get the Twin Otter ready. We’re going on a flight.’

  FIFTY-NINE

  After leaving the de Bruin’s estate, Elias drove around for a minute or so until he found a suitable farm track to pull in to. He switched off his engine then took another look at the gallery of photographs he’d checked out earlier. His memory had served him well. León de Bruin was wearing a gold wedding ring in all but one of them – the one taken at his in-law’s anniversary bash, where he’d had instead a band of paler skin where the ring should have been. Because of course you’d put on rubber gloves to move dead bodies and scrub the walls. And how easy to pull your ring off when you removed them again, and have it drop unnoticed to the floor.

  He couldn’t risk the Nettleham switchboard, so he called Yvette Coombs on her mobile instead. ‘Where the hell are you?’ she whispered. ‘Wharton’s going crazy. He wants your blood.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he told her. ‘Can you check something for me?’

  ‘Of course. What?’

  ‘Dunstan Warne’s wedding ring. Is there any kind of inscription on it?’

  ‘I don’t have it any more,’ she told him, puzzled. ‘I gave it back to Anna Warne last night. I thought that’s what you wanted.’

  ‘Hell,’ muttered Elias. ‘Yes. It was. Sorry.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Did you tell anyone?’

  ‘No. Why would I?’ But then she added: ‘It was on the receipt, though, which I posted to the case file.’

  ‘What time was that? Can you remember?’

  ‘Not exactly, no. But it was straight after I took her to see Jay. Four, four-thirty, something like that. Why? What’s going on? You want me to ask her for it back?’

  ‘No. It’s fine. I’ll do it.’ He ended the call then sat there for a while, thinking it through. A lost wedding ring would explain why de Bruin and Andrei had gone to the farm the other night, and why they’d lurked outside the pound yesterday evening, and the bikers’ failed bag-snatch too. And de Bruin was unlikely to stop there. He’d want that ring back before anyone realised its significance. Which meant Anna was in serious danger still. He called to warn her, but her phone was off. He left a message then tried Merchant instead. His phone was off too. He told himself not to worry. They were filming this morning, so of course their phones would be off. And at Newark Castle, too, which was only twenty minutes away, so that he could easily go there now himself to take back the ring.

  He drove a little faster than was prudent on the narrow, twisty lanes. He reached the A17. Traffic was heavy in both directions, yet he took every opportunity to overtake, for all the good it did. He was so focused on the road ahead that it was only after passing a white van headed in the other direction that he became properly conscious of it. Its front bumper had been held on with black tape, he was sure of it. And its driver had had a scarf over his chin and a baseball cap tugged down over his eyes.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The van was already well down the road. But it certainly looked similar to Dunstan Warne’s, and it had the same empty roof rack too. He dithered a moment but felt too uneasy just to let it go. He braked to turn. His indecision had cost him, however, as another flurry of oncoming traffic arrived to baulk him, while his sudden slowing caused everyone behind him to come to a screeching sharp halt, letting him know their displeasure with their horns.